Was watching a friend playing this earlier on PC. He runs an i5-2500K at 4.5 GHz with an overclocked HD 7850 and 16 GB of RAM. He was running the game at a pretty solid 30 fps with high preset settings and temporal SMAA at 1080p. He even said that he could push a few of the graphics settings higher if he wished, but all ultra makes the game dip under 30 frequently. That being said, it seems like performance isn't too bad after all and as I run a near identical setup to him at least my worries of a game that wouldn't hit my standards performance wise are gone. I'd like to play it at 60 fps like I've played most other open world games of the past few years on my PC, but Ubisoft PC games and optimisation never go hand in hand these days. I played GTA IV's PC version at 30 fps a few years back so I'd live.
That being said, the game still doesn't look all that visually stunning at those settings. The only time it looks nice is at night with rain like many here have said, and in my opinion it just doesn't shine anywhere else. I think the setting of the game doesn't help either, Chicago doesn't have the same sort of visual expression and colour that GTA V's Los Santos or Sleeping Dogs' Hong Kong has, and they both just feel more fun to roam around in than this game.
As for the game itself, I played around briefly and controls are mostly fine (was playing on a DS4 through DS4Tool). Driving controls are a bit iffy at first but I have no doubt that I'd get used to them over time like I have with any open world game.
I just couldn't shake the overall feeling that the game was lacking though. It all seemed very sterile and boring with little to no personality and character, which is something that lures me into open world games for some reason. The missions and hacking seem fun at first, but I'm not sure whether the novelty of hitting a button to hack everything will lose its novelty over time. And as the story seems bog standard and not particularly memorable, I'm not sure I'd enjoy the experience.
The only thing that stood out was the craziness of the digital trips and a few funny NPC profiles, but they seem to be the only thing that breaks away from an otherwise unremarkable open world.
At this stage I'm most probably not going to buy this any time soon. It seems like a game that will be discounted by the time holiday sales roll around, and by that point I might have a better hardware with which to aim for ultra settings at 60 fps to make the game more visually pleasing, so I'd be more happy with a purchase then than now.
