This is one of if not the most played game that I have. I just re-installed it to check my hour count and it was at 869 hours. I love the concept of bringing the hero style gameplay of MOBAs, a genre that just isn't for me, into an FPS. The sheer diversity in ways you can play, with 21 heroes at launch and 32 to date, makes each match fresh as you have to account for the many different combinations of characters on a team. It also has different characters for players of various skill levels, so if you aren't some master of twitch reflexes, you aren't entirely out of luck. The character designs themselves are also super cool. Each of the characters have very distinct personalities which shine through in their animations, both in your third person emotes, and your first person animations as you move about, as well as a great team of voice actors bringing them to life. The tactical team based objective play is where this game can really shine or at the same time fall apart completely. As with any game like this where players have specifics roles they must fulfill as part of a team, when everything works out and you're up against a team of similar skill, it's some of the most fun in a competitive shooter I've ever had. However, as someone who was largely stuck in the lower ranks, you would get the common problem of teams simply not grouping up, and there's nothing you can do at that point other than listen to a bunch of grown men get angry at each other over a video game.
Which ultimately brings me to why I stopped playing this game. This is the only game I've ever quit specifically because its community was so toxic. It seemed like every other match I would have to report someone for shouting or typing out some slur, their username being a slur, or just being toxic to their teammates for not playing well, or the way they think they should. It was to the point where my login screen for the game was the "thank you for reporting" message, and yet toxic players still showed up game after game. I started out the game as a very talkative player, making tactical callouts, and generally chatting it up when I could. Eventually it got to a point where I had to just never enter voice chat, taking a tactical hit in order to just be able to play a game without dealing with the toxicity, and when even the text chat got to be too much, when it was nearly every game, that's when I just had to let it go. It's a shame because when the game launched it really seemed like Blizzard intentionally put in all of these features to encourage positivity among players. There's no leaderboard to check who the "worst player" is. It shows you the play of the game so when someone does something cool, they are rewarded for it. At the end of the match it only shows positive medals for you to upvote to encourage good players. And during a match you're only shown your own medals, something people somehow decided to take and run with as "If I have a gold medal that means I should be a jerk to my team."
It's really unfortunate that the player base ended up like this. I'm not factoring them into my score because ultimately, I think the game itself is a wonderfully crafted experience that I spent hundreds of hours enjoying, and it shouldn't take a hit just because the people who ended up playing it were horrible. I'm sure there's some kind of meta-balance issue that some would argue makes it deserve a lower score, but I was never high rank enough to get into all that. My overall opinion on the game itself, is that it's a really creative execution on how to do a multiplayer shooter, with tons of variety, and even fun side-modes and seasonal events. Mystery Heroes and Mei's Snowball Fight in particular ended up being some of my favorite stuff in the game. I will subtract half a star from it for being one of the first games to introduce loot boxes, a mechanic which has driven at least a couple of my friends away from the game. Also, Blizzard, add a black woman for the love of god.
Which ultimately brings me to why I stopped playing this game. This is the only game I've ever quit specifically because its community was so toxic. It seemed like every other match I would have to report someone for shouting or typing out some slur, their username being a slur, or just being toxic to their teammates for not playing well, or the way they think they should. It was to the point where my login screen for the game was the "thank you for reporting" message, and yet toxic players still showed up game after game. I started out the game as a very talkative player, making tactical callouts, and generally chatting it up when I could. Eventually it got to a point where I had to just never enter voice chat, taking a tactical hit in order to just be able to play a game without dealing with the toxicity, and when even the text chat got to be too much, when it was nearly every game, that's when I just had to let it go. It's a shame because when the game launched it really seemed like Blizzard intentionally put in all of these features to encourage positivity among players. There's no leaderboard to check who the "worst player" is. It shows you the play of the game so when someone does something cool, they are rewarded for it. At the end of the match it only shows positive medals for you to upvote to encourage good players. And during a match you're only shown your own medals, something people somehow decided to take and run with as "If I have a gold medal that means I should be a jerk to my team."
It's really unfortunate that the player base ended up like this. I'm not factoring them into my score because ultimately, I think the game itself is a wonderfully crafted experience that I spent hundreds of hours enjoying, and it shouldn't take a hit just because the people who ended up playing it were horrible. I'm sure there's some kind of meta-balance issue that some would argue makes it deserve a lower score, but I was never high rank enough to get into all that. My overall opinion on the game itself, is that it's a really creative execution on how to do a multiplayer shooter, with tons of variety, and even fun side-modes and seasonal events. Mystery Heroes and Mei's Snowball Fight in particular ended up being some of my favorite stuff in the game. I will subtract half a star from it for being one of the first games to introduce loot boxes, a mechanic which has driven at least a couple of my friends away from the game. Also, Blizzard, add a black woman for the love of god.