I am so torn on this game. I finished it a couple of days ago and it does have things going for it but it's held back by SO many modern gamey elements and bad design decisions, so much that it not only stops this game from being truly great but actually reduces it to being a merely average game. I actually reached a point about 10-12 hours in, with about 15 story missions done, 10 outposts cleared and 10 radio towers found, where I sat back and realized just how little there is to do in this game. Don't misunderstand me, there is a lot of content in this game but almost none of it is worth doing. It really is Skyrim with guns.
The reason why it's like that in this game also ties into some of the design choices they made. It's a typical Ubisoft and modern open world game in general in that they decided that making interesting side quests/missions was too hard so let's just fill the world with random and useless collectibles and basic side missions. Why should I search for 120 relics outside of achievement whoring purposes? Yeah they give xp but you get more than enough in this game to get the worthwhile skills (I only had about 30-35 when I hit max level). Why should I look for the thousands of diamond icons on the map when all they give is worthless junk items? Yeah they provide money but all of the weapons are given to me for doing those boring assassin's creed-like radio towers and there's nothing else worth buying. Why should I do every single hunting/supply/kill sub-mission? After you do a few of each it's the same crap over and over again, yet there's dozens of them to do. As far as the hunting stuff goes the rare animal hides craft the ultimate pouches and items but you rarely ever actually need them.
So once you take those away you're left with the story missions, outposts and radio towers. I can't think of a reason to keep clearing the outposts other than to unlock more fast travel points. Once I got to the 10-12 range cleared (out of 34 I believe) I was extremely tired of doing them as they're very similar. There's always 5-6 guards spread out in the small area and sometimes there's a dog and sometimes there's a locked animal you can free to clear the entire area for you. When I hit the 16 outposts cleared mark I decided to stop trying to take them stealthily because it was too easy and boring and I purposely let them sound the alarm so they would bring in a dozen more guards to make it slightly challenging for me.
But enough about the side content let's talk about the gameplay. As I said at the beginning there are good elements here. I like the way most of the guns feel and I like that you can choose mods for them. For the first 10 hours it's fun running around the world and seeing what it has to offer. It looks amazing at times but admittedly it requires the sun to be in the right spot, otherwise it only looks decent.
But all of this is ruined by bad decisions. Having xp and a skill tree is cliche but not automatically bad, however when a good chunk of the abilities you have to unlock are abilities that are common sense or normal FPS stuff then we have a problem. Why can't Jason figure out how to cook grenades on his own, but can throw them like he's been in the military for years? Is he a moron or simply suffering from video game-itis? There are also a lot of game-breaking takedowns and abilities that can be unlocked in the trees. Enemies being tagged automatically by the binoculars was an awful idea. I like scouting the area first but I don't want a giant marker as I've played video games longer than 1 month. The crafting system is next to useless as you get most guns for free and all you really need is the weapon holster stuff. Anything else you craft just makes the game even easier by letting you carry even more rockets, or even more health syringes, or even more arrows that kill almost every human in 1 hit no matter where it hits them.
The minimap, while gamey and a downgrade from FC2, didn't bother me too much but what did was that the game puts everything on the map. There is no point in exploring when everything is spelled out for you (always available fast travel plays into this too) on a map. Now granted as I already explained there isn't really anything worth finding in this game anyway but if I didn't know that already I would have had hope that there could actually be something good hidden in that shack on the cliff way out in the distance (nope just another diamond icon with trash loot).
One of the biggest disappointments I have with the game is that the fire system has been drastically neutered from FC2. Too many times I started a fire in a packed forest and it immediately died where it began. I don't expect the entire jungle to go up in flames but there's a middle ground between that and the fire not spreading at all. It does happen right at times but it seems to be random. Also for future reference Ubisoft when grass burns it doesn't turn from light green to dark green, and embers that are on pieces of grass that are still burning on their own once the main fire moved on don't look like blobs of orange paint in real life. The fire system never really worked or looked as good as it should have for me unless I was in a specific story mission where the game wanted it to. I almost want to deduct 7 points from the game just for this egregious mistake.
Stealth has been improved in this game and also ruined by things to help the casual get through it easier. Besides the tagging problem there's also the fact that you can throw infinite rocks and the enemy never adapts to it. You can also shoot exploding arrows and it won't alert base. Then you have the "cool" but overpowered takedown moves like the knife throw and the double takedown. It results in an overall sub-par stealth system that makes the game way too easy if you choose to go that route.
The best part of this game is, surprisingly, the relatively linear missions. Many of them provide some much needed diversity from the all-jungle with boring filler content, generic tiny outpost formula. I could have done without the ones that focused on platforming because they made the platforming even more braindead and impossible to fail than Uncharted or Assassin's Creed. And if you're going to make a linear/cinematic story then put some fucking effort into making a good beginning, middle and end. When the game starts you're just thrown right into the middle of Vaas' camp and how you got there is relegated to optional (and easily missable) scenes later in the game, because god forbid the casual has to sit through scenes in the beginning where you can't shoot anything. But overall it was an enjoyable FPS campaign in terms of gameplay (the story was a hot mess).
Overall this game was a pretty big disappointment even if it was pretty good for most of the first 10-15 hours. Ubisoft is far too petrified of casuals getting lost or stuck and long time gamers pay the price with dull filler content and gameplay systems that are completely unbalanced and have little depth to them. It's a 6/10 game at best and another disappointing recent open world game. Open world games used to have good side content and exploration but now they just try to out MMO actual MMOs.