This thread seemed to get replaced by the review thread. Lets bring it back.
50 hours in now, about 75% complete and I still love playing this non stop. Even though I have fought every robot I am still thrilled when I battle them. There is this unpredictability to some of these fights, especially when you get an odd mix of robots that makes each encounter special. I am more badass than ever so I get a bit more bold taking on bigger groups than ever. Plus some of these later robots, oh man its a boss battle in any other game.
I also have advanced the story quite a bit and it is great. It is full on sci-fi goodness, incredible world building that is very detailed. Now be prepared to read files and listen to audio tapes but its all worth it as the mystery of what occurred is revealed.
The missions themselves might be the weakest aspect of the game, not that they are bad its just they tend to put humans all over the place and they are easily the worst part of the game. When you go from using all your tools while fighting these amazing robots to a stupid guy you can kill with one arrow it is a jarring contrast. Now they mix it up a bit by mixing humans with robots but still its forced. Also most missions take place in more enclosed locations, I prefer the open world. The majority of my time has been spent outside missions and nearly all my favorite moments in the game happened while exploring.
Now this is not to say the story in these missions are bad, I think the side quests are pretty damn great. They clearly went right to the witcher 3 handbook and stole the side quests from that. They take you to off beat locations, usually have some cool story involving interesting new characters. Some put you into battles with robots in the open world which I like more than the main mission sticking me in some enemy base. But best of all you get to see what an amazing character Aloy is. She is just the right amount of sarcastic, heroic, and a pure hearted good hearted character. The voice acting is fantastic across the board, I cant praise the story elements enough.
And now a ton of media which I will link in the next post.