Have played quite a bit of this now, so figured I'd share my thoughts on it so far...
The highlight is definitely the core mechanics of how it plays, as you would expect from Bungie it controls and feels really good in terms of movement and gunplay. Enemy AI usually also works quite well (though there are also some issues with them getting stuck in to same cover and peek routine or running over each other when they are in number in a small space) with how they move out of the way of your grenades and attempt to back off when they have taken damage in order to recharge their shield.
The game also looks stunning thanks to it's art which helps it greatly visually speaking because technically this isn't really doing anything great, overall it's definitely showing its cross-gen roots compared to other titles already out. So it's impressive how well they compensate for those shortcomings by having a nice stylized world with great art to back it up.
Overall though it seems I'm somewhat lukewarm on this, and that comes down to what the game delivers in terms of content and in terms of structure and presentation, so I'll go over the main negatives for me so far:
- Mission structure is very repetitive, boiling down to almost the same 'go here, activate this and wait for waves of enemies to turn up'. It's a real shame that they didn't put imagination and thought into how they designed the missions, especially with multiple players in mind, for example; Having multiple points of interest on a divergent path mid mission forcing the strike-team to split up, or making a scripted sequence where one team member provides covering sniper fire while the other people move a object across a space. Even something simple like a countdown timer can help mix up how a mission plays.
- This repetitiveness carries into the enemies, despite being completely different species they all conform to almost the same setup with grunts, leaders and heavies that all play and behave pretty much the same way to each other with slightly different weakpoint locations... would have loved more imagination being put into each different race and faction, and it seems like a missed opportunity unfortunately.
- Another main complaint is the sterility of the world, they have created these lovingly crafted and beautiful setting on each planet and yet they all feel like empty backdrops that you simply move through with little to no effect of impact upon as you play. In theory the other players should be proving to the feeling of a living environment but in practice it hasn't worked for me so far, would have loved being able to interact more with the world.
- Finally, the story or the lack of it I should say... really disappointing how throwaway and how badly presented it all feels, especially considering how seriously it seems to take itself. So far nothing that has been presented in the story has made me care about any of the events or characters I have encountered which is unfortunate all things considered.
Here is to hoping that the Raid will address some of my mission structure complaints.
