this game can't make up its mind re: how badly it wants to be Siege. it's not an awful game, i don't hate it, but all of its most prominent strengths - the gunplay, the operator variety, etc. - all of them are Siege exports. all of its biggest drawbacks come from changes made for this new game mode (because let's be honest, that's what this is).

some operators have interesting changes made to their abilities for this, some are just pasted in wholesale. the operators here seem to be selected based on popularity instead of utility - there's virtually no reason to ever use Fuze or Hibana, and there's no sign of operators that would be far more useful here: Ying, Lesion, etc. guns that were changed for the PvP of Siege are virtually useless here - any especially rapid-firing SMG is unusable due to recoil - it's a much greater issue when you're up against more than five opponents and are spraying most of your bullets into the wall.

weirdly though, i do keep coming back. the game gets the noggin joggin' a lot more than it ever was during Siege's Outbreak event (the thing that inspired this whole shindig). the sprawl seems kind of tedious when starting out but becomes a genuine issue at higher difficulties when you realize it makes everything else more threatening by merely existing. wrangling randos towards an objective can suck in ways multiplayer is always capable of, but the satisfaction of working with them to reach ever-higher Maelstrom Protocol ranks is real, although hard to convey. watching someone you just met brave a horrifying wave of enemies, risking their own operator's death just to help you recover yours is always heartwarming (not a word i thought i would use in a review for a Tim Clunky game).

the short version of this review is that this is very, very obviously for people who like the strong skeleton Siege has (with its operators and satisfying gun mechanics) but want a PvE game built on this chassis. it reminds me a bit of the kind of fun i got from playing Vermintide 2, effectively a horde mode where the horde itself is a credible threat (and not just fodder). all in all? i do like the game, it's fun in a completely different way from normal Siege. i'm a little mad at myself though for paying Forty United States Dollars for this (sponsored by White Claw Surge™) - if you're interested in this, definitely wait until it's on sale or try it through game pass if you're already subbed. i think you're much more likely to find an experience that's worth the money this way. strong 6 to low 7/10.

The game is actually pretty solid. I started the game as a duo with a friend of mine without playing the tutorial so it took us a minute to properly understand what there is to do in the long run, how the HP recovery works or how we would get back his "missing" Vigil.
After only a few hours of messing around we finally figured everything out and were enjoying the game even more from there on.
But I'll go through it step by step, starting with the positives:

Maps:
The maps in this game as far as I have seen them are very good. Many things reminded me of Siege while still noticeably being focused on a PvE side and wouldn't quite work in actual PvP, so I really like that part.

Gameplay:
It's pretty solid overall. Grab some of your favorite operators with sometimes slightly modified for PvE but still their original abilities and uses, gun down some mutants either super stealthy with style or in a wild rush.
Most of the random 3 missions you get when starting a match are pretty alright and don't feel out of place. Like you would expect to do these things if you are on a mission like that.
The monsters you fight on these missions come in many different shapes and forms. However all of them have certain weak spots which makes you kill them with a single shot of a silenced pistol. If you miss a shot and hit normal body parts you have just a few more quick shots before they alarm all nearby monsters and then you get from a stealthy mission into a wild battle that is still pretty easy to deal with most of the time, but sometimes there are certain surprised that can have a chance of taking you down if you don't pay attention. So while remaining somewhat stealthy is rather optional, it still can be recommended if you want to get through as fast and clean as possible.

Studies:
Every region has their own studies you need to perform in order to progress in the overall game and unlock more maps/operators. In the first few maps in New York City almost all of them are like an extended tutorial that carries through the actual game, giving you tasks of things you may not know yet or very simple tasks that you usually can complete in a single match.
I think only 2 studies took me more than 1-2 matches because of bad RNG. The study was to kill a certain amount of Striker and all monsters on the entire map were those explosive hunchbacks.
Still got through it rather quickly and unlocked almost of the content just with the first region except for one set of operators.

And that is pretty much it. Which immediately brings me to the negatives:

The game is missing something and that is content.
While there are studies that give you something to keep in mind while you keep doing the same couple missions over and over again just on different maps, most of them are not fun and rather feel like they are a bit late into the game to force you to perform some basic actions like using the communication wheel or ping something. The missions themselves become repetitive after a certain amount and after just a couple of them you have already seen every part of the map so there is nothing too exciting to see there either.
I feel like the game needs more things to do and more so it doesn't feel too repetitive too quick. There are 12 maps I believe which is a decent amount but for those 12 maps that you have to play at least 80 times (assuming you want the achievements of 20 games per region) and maybe more if you don't manage to finish all studies within those 80 matches, there are just not enough missions and enemies.
There is a pool of 13 different missions. That is only 13 objectives that randomly repeat over and over. One of which is only a thing on a specific map if one of your operators died there without being rescued by a partner. So effectively there are only 12 missions for those 12 maps that you have to play around 80 times, not including possible failure, missing out on studies or other things like certain places to interact with.
It gets a bit worse that there aren't even a lot of enemy types to face. Most of the time you face the same 3-4 variations of monsters with an occasional stronger one in the mix.
So overall it can get quite repetitive if you play too much of it at once.
As long as you only play a little bit here and there it doesn't get too repetitive too quick so you can actually enjoy more of the game but that is only to counteract a lackluster gameplay design.

It is a pretty solid base that has a potential to be pretty fun, but it needs more variety to become a good game.
As of now it feels more like a new PvE game mode added to Siege instead of being its own independent game that it is supposed to be.

This is a fun, well-designed game and I love the risk/reward considerations you have to make on whether to push on or extract in a given run. The way the game forces you to switch up operators is really well done. The stealth gameplay worked well for me and I felt sufficiently fucked when I broke stealth. Frankly, I would have rated this game higher if I had friends to play with. Playing alone with a squad of randoms where none of you are communicating is not fun and the game got repetitive quick.

This game got dumped on at reveal and launch and I think it's not that bad. In fact I think it's a little more than not bad, it's pretty solid.

There's this special feeling when you go into a round and you get two squad mates who are locked in, and you complete a round flawlessly. It feels...professional?

I'm not sure how else to describe it really. It's just this slick feeling when you can do a multi-pronged area clear and know that your squadmates can handle themselves and have your back.

The flip side to this of course is that having bad squadmates is hideously annoying because they can make you actually lose XP. And while the highs of playing with a professional group of randoms is super cool, playing with no mics and no friends is kind of a snooze after your first 3-4 Level 10 operators. If you have two or more people that you can rotate playing this with, I think you'll have more fun with it.

It's also interesting because the gun/equipment mechanics of R6 Siege feel very different here. In that game, you're doing relatively slow, tac shooting, but in this game you can quickly face a horde of enemies charging you. Which puts a pretty new, fun spin on the implementation of R6's gunplay.

I get why people have problems with the game, but I think it deserves better reception than it has gotten, and I hope Ubisoft gives it (like R6S before it) enough time to get its feet under it!