Good characters and character design, enjoyable story and didn't feel ridiculously grindy (for the main game) and long which is one of my main gripes with JRPGs. Each character was interesting enough and didn't dislike any of them. Their own arcs are fitted pretty well into the story. The turn-based combat is solid enough and I mostly just let the AI take over the other characters apart from a couple of boss fights towards the end.

Main issues I had though was the side quests which were mostly fetch quests and not interesting at all for the most part. I also couldn't be bothered finishing the post-game because what really frustrated me was that you spent most of the game going through a story and leveling up fairly naturally without needing to grind levels out that much, but right at the end where there's an post-game story and boss I need to beat, I have to mindlessly grind at least 10 levels to at least have a chance of beating the final boss post-game. Sure I can use the speed-leveling strats which are online, but I found it a disappointing end design to an otherwise good game overall. I was expecting more of a story in between where I could level up naturally like the main story and I didn't want to be there for hours just fighting monsters - that sort of stuff should be reserved for once you've done everything and want to max everything out.

Overall, I enjoyed the time I played but for the post-game stuff I'll just end up watching the fight and cutscenes on YouTube or else I feel like I'd be more fed up with the game if I played it through to the end myself.

I tried to like this game, but playing through it felt more like a chore than being fun. It plays similar to DOOM 2016 but it's worse. Dialogue is a bit annoying at times but it was ok overall. Levels were fine but the some of the enemies were annoying with some of the most insane range. I'm certain some of them have the distance of ICBMs. The katana didn't feel particularly amazing to use even with upgrades which was kind of disappointing.

I just ended up getting bored playing through the game but I think part of that is down to it feeling a bit dated overall with a story that didn't interest me.

Brilliant PvE game. I can't be bothered with PvP games nowadays and get more enjoyment from co-op games, so this game is almost perfect for me.

It pushes your PC a fair bit even with higher-end parts but I'm able to get around 100fps with medium-ish settings (Ryzen 7900X + RTX 3070) and the game still looks good. Runs very consistently as well with no stuttering.

The glaring issue is the kernel-level anti-cheat where they've chosen to use one of the worst ones available. I get why they'd want to use it but at least use a more reputable one. It's a risk I'm well aware of. Other issues are smaller ones like the glitches/bugs which are getting patched fairly frequently.

There was an expected and understandable recent nerf to the meta build (along with some buffs for other things) which I was using and I just found other builds to use which was their intention. Currently seeing a lot more diversity in builds which is honestly better than us all running the same things.

Overall, very enjoyable experience but be aware of possible system limitations for performance, the anti-cheat and the occasional glitches/bugs.

A lot of mixed feelings about this game. I think overall it's ok but frustrating would be the word to describe this because it could've been so much better and I have a lot to say on that. Would've rated it a bit lower had the game not looked as nice or ran as well on my PC.

Intro was really dragged out and should've been halved, especially that time in the car. I liked the premise of the story but it was frustratingly predictable almost all the way through. Very few characters were memorable and it presented itself as a bit of a watered-down BioShock.

For a game that seems heavily political with a whole utopian Soviet Union theme, it didn't really go into much depth about the politics (it was a very barebones with some very occasional moments that were above surface level). There were parts where P-3 said he doesn't care about it and sometimes had the option to say you did/didn't care. To me it's clear they tried to appeal to a broader audience by not heavily politicising the game, but you can't both have an obviously very political design choice and try to water down the politics for those that aren't interested in it while expecting it to work well. It's like the story and concepts had the potential to be as wide as an ocean and could've been as deep but they chose to fill it as deep as a puddle. Massively missed opportunity in my view but I get why a lot of people would prefer less political exploration. Then again, BioShock does it very well where even the average player enjoys it.

Dialogue sometimes felt like it dragged on too long but generally enjoyed it and the voice acting. Most will probably find P-3 to be really obnoxious and annoying but I liked him most of the time. However, being pissed off 99% of the time contributed to him a pretty shallow character. Not only that, but he wasn't really questioning anything about himself until the "big reveal" despite all the people and signs telling him something's wrong.

The "big reveal" about P-3 felt sudden as there was no proper development up to that point, it was just "by the way you're xyz". There were moments where he could see/feel something is contradicting what he thinks is reality, but he has a convo with the glove, asks questions and then just doesn't process any new information as if it never happened. It's a relatively short game but they really could've made P-3 a lot better than an angry man with zero deduction skills where the glove has to do it for him.

Some of the good things about the gameplay: glove upgrade system which is fully refundable so you can experiment with different builds (I didn't bother, I was using the shield and Shok the entire game while maxing out character upgrades), looting by holding F and scanning across lootable sections was great, liked the guns and they felt useful and you have to think about how to approach groups of enemies as they can all easily knock you down. Music also slaps hard.

A lot of little things annoyed me though: robots felt like damage sponges and I prefer to not have to grind these types of games out so I switched to easy to enjoy the combat more. I didn't find the combat particularly difficult (dodging felt clunky though), just that putting many many bullets into the guys with mustaches for ages didn't appeal to me. Inventory management is terrible - I can stack 90 rounds for my AK in one slot, a few rounds for my rocket launcher in another but I can't stack more than 1 of those little health pods? Game should've been way more linear by cutting out the open world area. I understand the reason for it (padding content for a longer game being one) but it's not fun to lock things like attachments and weapon upgrades behind exploration in an uninteresting open world. I never bothered and beelined for the main objectives, upgrading the weapons to what was unlocked already. Map is terrible to navigate through, didn't feel intuitive to use and I basically never used it. At least beelining to the main objective was pretty straightforward.

The game does look amazing and ran pretty well on my system (3070 with a Ryzen 7900X on near-max settings at 90+ fps, only dipping as low as 70 in some areas). Very occasional stutters but nothing terrible. I don't know how it was on release but nearly a year since release and it's in a pretty good state.

I'd recommend this on a big sale (at least 50%, I played this on a PC game pass trial) and not bothering with the open world part. The game isn't interesting enough to warrant spending more than double the time I did on the game for some upgrades (unless you really want a specific upgrade).

When I first tried the beta for this, I had no interest in the game having played the first one extensively and enjoying it. Decided to play this recently after many years of not playing the Division and it's a very solid game as someone who finished the base game on solo.

The story is extremely bland whereas the first one was a lot better, however I played the game as more of a straight looter shooter while not being interested in the lore.

There seems to be a lot of build diversity and while I do prefer the darker and more post-apocalyptic vibes from the first game, this game still looks great. It's a solid game if you don't care about anything but shooting, getting loot and min-maxing your character's build.

The way Ubisoft has treated this series over the years has made be never want another Splinter Cell game to be made again as much as I love the franchise (mainly the first game and Chaos Theory). You can guarantee they'd make an open world like MGSV but with the usual Ubisoft formula cancer.

For the past few releases they turned the game from a stealth shooter to a horrible cover shooter. This game is an attempt to make a bit of a hybrid while trying to get that old Splinter Cell feeling back. It does not work. The missions and stealth design in those missions are worse than the 2002 game.

Over 10 years and in the end they've regressed. It's a sad end to what could've been a fantastic stealth franchise, but I very much doubt that they'll ever be able to capture the feeling of games like Chaos Theory, especially the state Ubisoft is in right now.