That's sadly true. It's fun coop, but not so much alone. It's the Borderlands syndrome - but at least Borderlands hat neat loot and a story with characters. Destiny is dry.
I'm in the opposite camp. I found Borderlands' referential humor really tired, being completely over ironic in-jokes even before that game popped up. I usually love loot-a-thons, but there's just too much going on there that drastically changes gameplay for me to care. I found myself using inferior weapons because I know their "feel" and didn't want to change that every 10 minutes or so.
As for Destiny: I'm playing it on a PS3, rented and not owned, and never touched the beta. Therefore, climbing to a vantage point to see the vistas in Old Russia is brand new to me and the excitement isn't worn down.
The issue with the story, from my perspective, is that they wanted to lay it out early and move on to the gameplay, leaving the backstory and tidbits up to the player to suss out in the Grimoire. It gives a feeling that the gratification comes too quickly and too easily, making the story seem blander than it is. There's no drive or impetus, and Peter Dinklage lays an egg, rare for him, in his performance. I mean, it's really bad.
I think they should have went even more oblique with the story, not flesh it out more. Skip the whole "we need you" scenes... put us in it the fray, like they clearly wanted, and let that be it. Push the backstory even harder in the Grimoire, and while they're at it, turn the Grimoire over to some
writers! Those generic toss-off statements... I've seen more creative GAF posts, which, if anyone else posts like me, are mostly banged out quickly in waiting rooms or in lulls at the job. There's an interesting core there, but it's not being exploited like it should.
The gameplay holds it weight because of the lethality. Even when over-leveled, you don't want to run in the middle of a group and start blasting. The maps within the missions are varied enough in layout to be interesting and fit in the greater world map, but the pacing needs work. Walk-firefight-walk-firefight, for the most part. The guns feel great, to me, which is critical in an FPS.
The multiplayer is like an adept cover band, but there's a lot of verticality giving variety to the maps, thanks to each class having a jump boost ability. Hopefully, more people on other systems actually use headsets, because I seem to be the only one on PS3. I hate silent multiplayer games; I'll take the 12 y/o delivering maternal slander over silence. But, where I liked the lethality in singleplayer, I want less of it in the multiplayer. (I normally hate bullet sponge multiplayer games, preferring the Counter Strike approach.) Here, I want a chance to use the well-done environments during a quick 1v1 firefight. I want a chance to toss a defensive grenade and duck out. That charged up fusion rifle shouldn't one-shot me as soon as he/she pokes around the corner. My revives should truly mean something when capturing a defended point.
I want a flat 50% damage reduction in PvP.
But that's just a quick mini-review, and hopefully a boost in positivity for those (like me) hoping the game makes a quick jump to PC. I'm loving it so far.
