Well my first impressions of this game are pretty bad.
The cover system is way less intuitive that even Gears of War from 10 years ago. It feels very clunky and not very "snappy." I also find the combat itself to be pretty boring, but that could just be because we don't have the interesting abilities and perks unlocked yet. I mean I understand that they want the game to be realistic and not have crazy maneuverability like Gears or Vanquish, so I figured there would be more tactical or stealth options to change up the combat.
The worst part is that the mission structure is just walk to room with chest-high walls and kill waves of enemies -> walk through hallway with a few loot boxes -> walk to room with chest-high walls and kill waves of enemies. These non-dark zone missions seem stuck in the past. I mean I can handle this kind of boring mission structure if the actual combat or gameplay mechanics were fun (I love Destiny for example), but it just plays like any other cover-based shooter.
As for the darkzone itself, I didn't get to explore it fully yet because I only played it for about 30 minutes but it was a pretty grueling experience. I was split up from my friend because he was level 7 while I was level 8. So we just decided to explore on our own and see if we could find anything. This is the part of the game that's most confusing to me. I understand that you're supposed to get loot and then extract it, and to also defend it against other players. Alternatively you can choose to kill other players and go rouge.
But my issue is...what do you even DO in the darkzone to get loot (aside from other players)? What streams or avenues are there to get loot? Because I didn't see any quests or missions in the darkzone. I couldn't find any loot caches either.
My only experience with the darkzone is walking around aimlessly, and getting killed by the same rouge team with overpowered weapons and armor over and over again.
The only good things about this game so far is the UI/HUD and the graphics I guess. Also judging from all the things that are locked, I think there will be a good amount of content too.
Looking forward to figuring out what to do in the darkzone with a squad this weekend. Perhaps it'll be different then.