My most recent playthrough made me realize that I had been too hard on this game before when comparing it to Human Revolution.

In terms of the actual gameplay it improved more on Human Revolution than I gave it credit for. Both the stealth and gunplay are much improved and it definitely feels like it gives you many more options to get through areas.

I wish I could say the same about the story but Square's meddling in the development of the game made sure that it ended up being weaker overall even if there are definitely spots that I thought were much improved over HR. I thought the side missions were much more interesting and much more fleshed out than before with more thought put into the story of each of them with and with multiple of them having different stages that occur over your different visits to Prague that all come together at the end of the game where you can see the different people Jensen helped throughout the game joined together under a singular cause. One side mission "thread" I would like to single out is the Harvester missions. Those on their own are much more fleshed out than anything in HR and are some of the best parts of the game.

The main story is a step down from HR but in general is still interesting enough to stay engaging until it completely drops the ball with the ending where instead of having anything actually important happen it just zooms in on a tv while the news tells you about all the things you did.

This is my favorite shooter since Doom Eternal. The rhythm aspects add so much to the gameplay, more people need to do this kind of thing. It's overwhelming at first but once you get a hang of it, it is so satisfying. Doing more damage on its own is more than enough reason to stay on rhythm, but it also builds your score multiplier. When that hits max level, the vocals kick in, and when the vocals kick in they go hard.

The soundtrack of this game is genuinely incredible and I'm so happy it exists. It's just an expertly crafted metal album that kicks so much ass. I actually got goosebumps when the final boss music kicked in.

The story isn't much but its good enough for what it is. It's elevated immensely by Troy Baker's narration. You can get away with a lot when there's someone with a thick southern drawl narrating the whole thing.

I went into this game expecting it to be good, but what I didn't expect was a very strong GOTY contender. I'm gonna have to mull it over a little more but this could easily find itself in my top 5 shooters. Highly recommend.

This is the definition of a hot mess. It’s a gorgeous game with really fun gunplay, but is filled with just tons of jank and an overall lack of polish.

The story is honestly pretty boring, it’s not hard to follow or anything but there’s not much to it and is mostly there to just string together the levels. The only interesting characters were the ones outside of the story, like the artificer or the rogue doc. The rest are just boring and the conclusion is just dull and completely unsatisfying.

Now the star of the show is 100% the gameplay. The movement is fun and the guns all feel great. The only thing really lacking are the abilities. There’s plenty of them but I barely ever needed to use them. My main complaint with the gameplay overall is that it’s just too easy. Most of my deaths were to pits not enemies. I barely felt any challenge and when I did it felt unearned, like in the not so great boss fights.

Would I recommend it? Definitely. It’s a fun game with a killer presentation that is marred by a major lack of polish. Would I blame someone for dropping it after a couple hours? Probably not.