After hearing fanboys rave for years about how good it was, I finally bought it for PC the day before yesterday and played through the campaign. I can tell there might be a great game here, but there are some serious problems I would like all those lemmings to refute.
For starters, Windows Live is the ABSOLUTELY worst online service I've seen in my life. It's slightly worse than Steam 6 hours after it launched. The entire thing reeks of commercialism and restrictions. I know it's a console style service, but I completely fail to see why a console style service should be on PC. A PC is, by definition, a free, "personal" platform. Windows Live essentially pretends that GFW games belong to Microsoft, not the buyer.
Anyway, after starting the game what hit me really hard was that V-sync doesn't work, regardless if it's turned on or not. Which results in screen tearing at every possible opportunity.Another thing is that the game doesn't come close to looking like everyone said it does. I'm running it at 1920 x 1200, with everything else turned highest (except V-sync doesn't work), and while I have to admit that there are a lot of high-res textures, there's almost nothing else. As far as I can tell there aren't any shadows.
Furthermore, EVERYTHING, that is to say, EVERYTHING is grey. Even blood has grey in it. It's an absoulute eyesore, and environments all look nearly identical. Everyone in the game is modeled like a bodybuilder on lots of steroids. Did I mention that V-sync doesn't work? At heart it's a nice looking game from a technical standpoint, but with horrible art design. Of course, art design is debatable, but I like colors and I think it's horrible. And since I'm a hermit, I'll say this: it doesn't come within 50 miles of Crysis. The animation is excellent, at least.
Another problem is the gameplay. Maybe I just suck at the game and shouldn't have started playing it at hardcore, but that still doesn't change the fact that the cover system is half broken. Epic might have been forced by both design and circumstances to map everything to one button on consoles, but there's no reason to use only one button on a keyboard, especially not in a game that forces me to authenticate it every time I open it so it could be "higher quality".
Guns are surprisingly inaccurate, considering all come with ironsights. Maybe Marcus doesn't know how to use them. Grenades take forever to throw, are somewhat inaccurate and aren't much use even when they do work. The campaign is essentially a large corridor shooter and is very unbalanced. The story sucks, period. My teamates die far too quickly (maybe they suck too), but while they lying bleeding on the ground enemies and their own bodily fluids ignore them. I've even used them as cover a few times. To be fair, they're quite useful when they're alive. The enemy AI and music is also excellent.
However, I still fail to see how this game could bea 9.6 on GS, and why everyone praises it to be what seems like the best next-gen game. The core game is excellent, but there are far too many bad design points (the cover system, your easily killed teammate, horrible story, ineffectual grenades, the "everything grey & bulky" philosophy) to back it up.
