Hotline Miami delivers a fast-paced, unforgiving, arcade style experience that is quite enjoyable. There are masks which change how your character does his killing. The music is good but all electronic. Short game but sweet. Good for speedrunning. Watch a video of the gameplay to get a feel for it. Bought for $2.50 on sale, played 7 hours, got half the achievements. Recommended.
Superb level design, enemies, story, puzzles, and shoot-em-up action make Half-Life an amazing game. It has aged surprisingly well and is still fun today. Figuring out how to progress to the next area is very rewarding. Small flaws: -crosshair can be hard to see -one save game crash, otherwise ran smoothly on windows 10 Bought for $1, played 12 hours, highly recommended.
Decent tower defense/management game. Nice pixel graphics, good music, and good management/strategy make it fun. As a rogue-like you have to be patient and willing to restart. This can be frustrating because some games can take 2-3 hours, and starting from scratch feels like a waste of time. It's trial and error. AI is stupid, but it just takes some getting used to. A big part of game is running from one side of the map to the other and checking your walls, archers, and farmers. Your character can't fight. There are only 3 keys to use -- left, right, and down. Received for free, played 21 hours, getting most achievements. Estimated value of $2.50. Recommended.
Sweet platforming action and colorful levels make this game good. It's no Banjo-Kazooie, but it is a decent 3D platformer with collectibles and linear levels. Allows rebinding keys. Some voice acting is a bit wonky. Sometimes they will talk really fast or really slow, probably a translation issue. Some combat is a little choppy. Good game, received free, but the price of $2 is easily worth it. Took 8 hours to collect everything. Recommended.
A truly great game. Awesome exploration, quests, RPG elements, spells, music, and good story. A few warnings starting out: - It can be overwhelming and unclear where to go and what to do, so find an online guide. The game is dated and there are no way-points. Fast travel is available from certain NPCs, and is very useful. - Movement is EXTREMELY slow at first. The best fix for this is an item called boots of blinding speed. Luckily, you can get them early. Leveling acrobatics and athletics skills will help a lot. - The game starts out slow. Leveling from 1-2 took several hours. It took about 15 hours for it to stop being slow, but once it gets rolling, it is an extraordinary game. Stick with it! - Use mods to remove bugs. Bought for $7.50, played 171 hours, highly recommended.
Very unique brawler/metroidvania. Great combat, music, platforming, interesting bosses, and extra challenges make it a great game. The cartoon graphics and brawl combat make it stand out from others of the genre. Difficult but rewarding challenges. Able to remap keys so I could use keyboard. Main game took 9 hours. With extra challenges and achievement hunting, it took 21 hours. Got it free, but it is definitely worth $5 to $10. Highly recommended.
Decent game with some fun combat and RPG elements. It is a short game that you replay several times, making different choices each time to eventually reach the "true hero" story. The graphics are good and the fighting is a bit of fun. The narrator is good, but he plays the voices for 3 different characters which mostly sound the same. The combat is mostly click to combo. Combat is clunky and he often just stands there when switching from attacking to moving/dashing. The story seems a little random, but it isn't bad. Key bindings cannot be changed. Got it free, played 10 hours, got 95% achievements. Estimated value of $5. Not recommended.
Great stealth and combat action. Open world to explore and plenty of collectibles. There's also some RPG elements such as character upgrades and new gear to find. Great graphics, voice-acting, and music. My only complaint is that some of the combat challenges (extra content) are ridiculously difficult. Bought on sale for $5, played 28 hours (main story takes about 12-15 hours, but I found all collectibles and played all challenges), highly recommended.
This has the core elements of the Borderlands series: FPS and RPG, which makes it a good game. It is not as good as Borderlands or Borderlands 2, but fans of the series will definitely enjoy it. The story is not as good as the other two, and some characters are downright annoying, but Borderlands is more about shooting, looting, and leveling. Six fun, unique characters to play and customize. Claptastic Voyage is a hilarious DLC, one of the best of the series. I bought it and all DLC for about $30, played 356 hours, highly recommended.
Thief Gold has great stealth mechanics and good level design. For its time some of the concepts were revolutionary and many of them still hold up today. Fun features include hiding in shadows, different amounts of noise generated by walking/crouching on different surfaces, and ascending vertically through use of rope arrows. Stealth attacks do more damage, which can be rewarding, though occasionally they would not work and instead do normal damage. Ability to save anytime is very useful to create your own "checkpoints". Combat can feel clunky, blocking is actually less effective than walking backwards or jumping to dodge attacks. Most levels are well-designed and fun to explore and find secrets/loot, however a few levels are maze-like and can be frustrating. The map has no player-marker, it just highlights the area where you are. Some mission maps are very difficult to comprehend. Cash and items are not cumulative but vary from mission to mission, so looting everything doesn't have much benefit. Bought for $1, played 26 hours (replayed some missions), great stealth game, highly recommended.
Great strategy game. The turn-based campaign map with RTS battles makes for a unique and enjoyable experience. The history is accurate, though you essentially rewrite it as you play. The variety of factions and units makes for some great fun and replayability. One interesting aspect of the game is that troops don't always win against the units they have a bonus against. For example, pike infantry have a bonus against cavalry. However, if cavalry are maneuvered in an effective manner they can attack the pikes from the side or rear, rendering their deadly points useless. The downside of this is that it is so effective that it becomes a staple strategy for nearly every battle, limiting your strategic choices. Sometimes my groups of cavalry would simply attack whatever unit was nearest to them, despite commanding them to attack only archers. This was annoying but fixable by individually ordering them. Auto-resolve is a way to skip the RTS battles and stay on the campaign map, but it is very unbalanced and often makes you lose battles you would normally win easily. Cost $3.24, played 88 hours. Great game, highly recommended.
The worst part of this is the start of the campaign. You start with bad cities, low income, tons of enemies, and have to somehow manage to conquer the map in only 100 turns. It is overwhelming at first, and difficult even on easy, but once you get a few cities can be fun. It took me 66 turns on easy, though I used a guide to help with the start. Balance issues: Alexander is way too strong, pikes are too strong, archers are useless. The historical battles are fun and interesting, though also too hard. 20-30 hours of content, recommended if bundled or cheap.
Jotun is a great game but has a steep learning curve. The hero does not attack or move as quickly as expected, so the first few hours of play were adjusting to the controls. However, once adjusted, the game is fun and rewarding. Boss fights constitute the main gameplay of Jotun and they are very well designed. You must learn each bosses' patterns and adjust your play accordingly. It is very hard at first but becomes so rewarding when you start earning achievements that you initially thought impossible. A combination of 2 special abilities makes every fight much easier. The game is perfect for speed running. Main game took 6 hours, but replaying bosses for achievements took 17 hours. Highly recommended, only worth $5 due to length.
(Vanilla review) Minecraft is a great concept that never realized its full potential. It has fun exploration, combat, and sandbox gameplay that make it stand out. However, it suffers from a lack of polish and content. There are about 15 different kinds of enemies in the game, which is odd considering the variety of biomes. Combat is limited to swords and bows. There are only 5 tiers of tools/armors/weapons. Crafting also feels limited and item stack sizes are only 64. Bosses seem rushed and untested. The Ender Dragon is very difficult even on easy mode. There are several "grindy" parts of the game. For example, enchanting costs levels to perform, and even enchanting 2-3 items can take 1-4 hours of level grinding. To get to The End the first time requires 14-16 ender pearls which drop from a rare enemy. To summon the Wither boss requires 3 wither skulls which are a very rare drop from a very rare enemy. Spent $27, played 180 hours, not recommended because there are better sandbox games.
Great environments, collectibles, platforming, abilities, characters and humor combine to form an amazing adventure. The levels are unique and incredibly creative. There are several puzzles, and I found myself stuck a few times, but it makes for a good challenge. There are a lot of cutscenes, which can be annoying. A few control difficulties, for example while grinding on rails it can be difficult to jump off. Sometimes Raz falls off poles or refuses to grab onto them. Cost $1, played for 25 hours (collecting all items), will replay every few years for the rest of my life. Highly recommended.
Good action, weapons, upgrades, and level design. The weapon progression feels similar to Bioshock, which is good. Encourages extra playthroughs with 5 difficulty settings, many achievements, and new game plus. Some enemies shake up your aim, which can be very frustrating, forcing you to stop attacking for a few seconds until you recover. It can be difficult to tell if you are hitting certain enemies, such as the berserker, as there is no indication of damage until it's dead. Hitboxes/aim sometimes felt inaccurate. The heal ability would sometimes fail to activate and instead use weapon's secondary fire, which caused unnecessary deaths. 2 glitches forced me to go back to previous saves, but the auto-save checkpoints are common and you can manually save to create your own checkpoints. Overall great fun. Estimated value $5-$10, first playthrough took 15 hours.
Great expansion! Adds more characters, classes, skills, levels, and equipment, allowing for even MORE customization. Rune crafting also enables more customization options. The story was interesting, but not amazing. Better than Origins in certain aspects, but still suffers from stupid AI and some bugs. Took about 20 hours, fun enough to play twice.
Amazing customization - you create your own character and choose from several diverse characters to form your party. The variety of classes, skills, characters, and equipment in the game merits 2 or 3 playthroughs. The story is good. I had to restart several fights due to poor AI. There are ways to automate your NPC allies but they often end up getting into trouble, so many times it is best to micromanage them by pausing and giving individual commands. It is frustrating and requires adjusting how you play. There are several bugs. One bug is on a spell intended to deplete enemy mages' mana. However, it actually replenishes their mana, essentially making the spell worthless. There are a few quest bugs which may force you to reload a previous save or find a solution online. Awakenings is the best DLC, others are just okay. Bought ultimate edition (includes all DLC) for $7.50, played 114 hours, great replay value.
Great atmosphere and story. Side-missions were fun, and it was cool to receive a permanent bonus to interactions with NPCs after completing different groups' missions. Fast travel and repairs are reasonably priced, which is a great improvement. The difficulty settings were improved, easy is now easy. The weight limit is still stifling, but fortunately you can now recover stamina while walking, which you couldn't do in the previous 2 games. Certain ammo such as shotgun ammo is too heavy. One problem in all 3 STALKER games: running over railroad tracks and other small obstacles is unrealistic. Your character treats them like mini hurdles. If a person runs over something as small as railroad tracks, they don't have to slow down and jump over them, they simply place their feet to avoid the tracks. The weight limit is realistic (and annoying) but the stepping on railroad tracks is unrealistic (and annoying). This inconsistency lowers the quality of the game. Bought for $3.33, played 15 hours, not recommended for many small flaws.
This series is so funny because the improvements made over Shadow of Chernobyl introduce drawbacks. They added fast travel (teleportation), but it is prohibitively expensive. For the first half of the game you sprint for 10 seconds, stand still for 10 seconds to recover stamina, then sprint again. Distances also seemed greater than Shadow of Chernobyl. They added the option to upgrade armor and guns, but more upgrades makes repairing them cost more, and again, it is too expensive. Health packs weigh less but the weight limit is still too restricting until you get stamina improvements. Factions were added which you can join and fight for/against and reap rewards. However there are defense missions that pop up one second and before you can run to the area you need to defend the mission fails. Improvements without drawbacks: The camera doesn't shake as much. Gun accuracy is better. The story is not as good as Shadow of Chernobyl, but the overall gameplay is better. Cost $3.33 and played about 15 hours, not recommended for the above flaws.
Great atmosphere and story. Movement makes the camera shake too much, which is disorienting. The weight limit is too low and makes no logical sense as there are "stashes" all throughout the game but you can't properly loot them because of the weight restrictions. Ammo and health packs weigh too much and when you exceed the weight limit your mobility becomes very limited. It is realistic, but frustrating. Guns are inaccurate, which is ironic considering how important headshots are towards end-game. Difficulty is too hard, even on the easiest difficulty. Difficulty also felt forced. For example in the last stretch of the game your armor will probably hit zero durability at which point it offers no protection. If you take 2 armors you could avoid this, but the weight limit really doesn't allow you to take an extra armor. Enemies can also get lucky headshots against you. It is possible your saved game will become corrupted and cause the game to crash. However, you can load an earlier save, so you only lose about an hour or so of time, depending on when you last saved. Cost me $3.33, played 15 hours. Do not recommend unless you really like stories about radioactivity.
Dust has great metroidvania action, superb voice acting, humorous moments, and a great story. A few small flaws: 1. occasionally imprecise parrying 2. the cartoon cut scenes are somewhat poor quality As a metroidvania fan I highly recommend this game. Bought for $2.99 on sale, played 25 hours. Will play again every few years for the rest of my life.
Good RPG, has decent exploration, good plot, good leveling, quests and skill tree. Combat is somewhat automatic, you click on the enemy to attack, then wait for your character to combo until the cursor flashes and click again. There's a few spells but they are not too interesting. The alchemy is well done, it involves collecting ingredients and mixing potions, allowing you to heal or gain temporary buffs. The plot and exploration are linear, you progress to the next chapter and cannot go back (except between chapter 2 and 3). There are some interesting points in the story in which you are forced to make a decision, but the overall plot is largely unaffected by these choices. There are a LOT of cutscenes. At one point there was a cutscene, then a brief fight with 2 normal enemies, then another cutscene. You can click to speed up cutscenes which is nice if you read fast. Good graphics, but is very CPU intensive even on my new computer. Occasionally crashed and lost some progress. Played 41 hours, cost $1.50. Recommended on sale and if you have a good computer.
One thing I really admire about the FF franchise is how they change things up. This game has Guardian Forces (GF, which function like summons) and magic. There's no armor and only a few different weapons. To improve your stats you "junction" a GF to your character, then "junction" magic to your stats. It's confusing at first, but once you figure it out it is very rewarding. Magic is more like an item in this game, you can collect up to 100 of each magic by "drawing" it from monsters, draw-points, or refining it from items. One strange feature of the game is the Triple Triad card game (mini-game), which is simple to play but the way rules are changed is utter chaos. You can get some good items and abilities from playing it, but I advise using a guide or skipping it if you aren't patient. The story is okay, somewhat of a romance, so that's different. The characters are lackluster and nowhere near as unique or interesting as the characters in FF7, but the graphics are more realistic. The game is very good and does not fall short of FF expectations. Bought for $6 on sale, played 70 hours, highly recommend.
This game is very difficult. It involves random runs in which you will die over and over. The items you come across are randomized, so some runs you will get lucky, and others you won't. It is very unique, and you move and attack to the beat, but is often frustrating because of the high difficulty. It's even difficult to unlock characters and achievements. Cost me $3.74 and played 41 hours. Only recommend if you don't mind dying a lot.
A great strategy game made mediocre by luck. There were matches I lost simply from bad luck. When your units fight, a calculation is made based on their stats, the land they are on, who is attacking versus defending. Much of the time my chances of winning a fight were 66% or higher but I frequently lost those fights. It is frustrating to work hard to gain superior technology to another civilization only to lose what should be a winning fight. Even playing on the easiest difficulty isn't very easy. That said, the game looks good (for 2001), has compelling history and scenarios, interesting micromanagement of cities, and great diplomacy interactions. I very frequently found myself completely immersed in a match, always pressing for the next turn or my next big move. So much so that I forgot to eat sometimes! Bought the Complete Edition on steam sale for $1.24, played 80 hours, recommended.
Divine Divinity is a solid ARPG, but compared to modern ARPGs it is VERY dated. Movement feels choppy and clicking is often imprecise. Hotkeys are assigned to F1-F12 while the number keys are blank. It also uses "alt" as a hotkey... (you can edit the config files) Combat initially feels turn-based and sometimes you will die when trying to flee because your character has to stop and do a flinch animation. Your attacks will also miss 50% of the time before you start putting points into agility. The strangest part of this game is that if you die there's no game over message or an option to respawn, you just have to load an earlier save. Teleporters must be unlocked with an item and a personal visit, which sometimes makes unlocking the teleporters a waste of time. There is a LOT of running in this game, even if you use teleporters. Otherwise it is a medium-sized world with many quests and good skills to unlock. It is fun but you have to get past the annoying aspects of it. Cost me $1.50, took about 43 hours to beat.
This game deserves all the hype it gets. Skyrim is a massive, beautiful world with thousands of things to do. The quests, combat, exploration, and character customization are superb. The only flaw I can point out is the bugs, which can be frustrating from time to time, but mods can eliminate most. Bought on sale for $14. Played for 8 months, logging 371 hours. The epitome **** game.
Toki Tori 2 is very different from Toki Tori, although it is still good. Great exploration, great graphics, and innovative puzzles make it thoroughly enjoyable. The puzzles are difficult but a little easier than the 1st game. There are only 2 actions besides movement -- stomp and sing, but you can sing 5 different songs with differing effects. You use them to interact with various creatures to solve puzzles. My biggest gripe with the game is the true "rewind" feature from Toki Tori was removed and replaced with a restart checkpoint feature, so even if you make a small mistake you have to go back to checkpoint and restart the whole puzzle. Also if you whistle the "rewind song" by mistake, you go back to checkpoint. A simple "restart checkpoint" option in the game menu would have served better. Was fun to find the secrets and get all collectibles. Got it for $0.61, gave me 27 hours of fun.
This game is essentially the same as Abe's Oddyssey with a few improvements: - Better tutorial - New enemy type - Able to possess more types of enemies - Able to save whenever, which lets you create your own checkpoints That said, the controls still feel clunky and delayed, which causes many frustrating deaths. Otherwise the plot, atmosphere and characters are great. Bought on sale for $0.50 and got 13 hours of semi-fun out of it.
The game's atmosphere, story, SFX, and voice acting are all superb, even today. The controls feel very delayed and imprecise, especially for a game that has a lot of platforming. I have played other platformers with strange controls but I never seemed to adjust to Abe's choppy movements. It can be frustrating to die because Abe takes too long to react to my input. Inability to remap movement and jump keys was also a letdown. The puzzles are difficult but rewarding. I bought it on sale for $0.49, gave me 12 hours of semi-fun.
Deceptively cute, Toki Tori is a difficult puzzle game. The platforming elements are very few. The puzzles range from medium difficulty to extremely difficult. Had to look up solutions to some puzzles. Enjoyable even though several puzzles had really obscure solutions that I never would have thought of. Ability to rewind your actions all the way to the start of the level is a great feature, makes trial and error very accessible. Picked it up on sale for only $0.50 and gave me 30 hours of fun.
This game is amazing. My first playthrough I thought it was just okay, but replaying it made me completely fall in love with it. Great story-telling, great mechanics and controls, great abilities, and great action make this game one of the best of all time. Spectacularly engaging even if you don't enjoy shooters. My only complaint is that, because it is not an open-world game, it doesn't seem like you get to fully explore Columbia. Cost me $3.40 on sale, played 35 hours. Super value.
Contraption Maker is a good game that will remind you of the old "Incredible Machine" days. There are plenty of puzzles and zany gadgets to choose from. The "practically impossible" puzzle set is fun, but there are a few puzzles in it that are beyond DIFFICULT. Those aren't very fun, because you can spend 1-2 hours on a puzzle and never figure out the solution. However, most puzzles are fun and interesting. Took me about 20 hours, only $1 on sale.
Tales of Maj'Eyal is immersive. I often found myself playing for more time than I anticipated. It is VERY deep, but if you want a shallower experience you can choose a simple class and simply hammer away at enemies. I don't understand why it is rogue-like, I found it far too difficult that way so I played on infinite lives mode. I felt there was too much to lose when playing with a fixed number of lives. Really good for the price. Can sometimes feel a little slower than other RPGs since it's turn based strategy. Played 60 hours on it, could have played 100 easily.
I bought it on sale $7.50 and am happy with it. I don't understand why people expect it to be a "new" game or have additional content. If you read the description you know what you are getting. I haven't tried the multiplayer extensively, but single player works great, brings back good memories of AoM.
Great 3rd person TD game. One thing I really enjoy is that you have a major effect on the outcome of the level. You can't just set traps and go afk. Great levels, enemies, traps, and spells. It was fun to try to get all the skulls on every level. (skulls are currency used to improve traps) Moderate length campaign, but you can replay it on hard difficulty, which is fun. My only complaint is you can't lower the texture settings for the graphics, so it was hard for my computer to run. Great game, gave me 50 hours on normal + hard mode, replaying a few levels for fun.
I've been playing the re-released versions of FF since the gameboy advance days. This one is probably the best from 1-7. I has a great plot, great characters, great gameplay, and the materia customization mechanic was very enjoyable. I advise using a guide because there are parts when they don't give you any clues about where to go next. I played to level 99 and beat the 2 super bosses just for fun. Took me 70 hours, cost $6 on sale. Highly recommend.
Very fun. Difficult but rewarding gameplay that occasionally borders on frustrating. If you want a more relaxed experience stick to the "light world" levels. Great fast pace and wall-jumps. You can re-map the key bindings by editing files, which you will want to do for a keyboard setup. Gave me 60 hours of fun, 17923 deaths, highly recommended.
Great story, great graphics, great atmosphere/environment, great weapons, great exploration. To be honest I find it difficult to find any flaws with this game, aside from the fact that multiplayer is completely dead. I really enjoyed guarding the little sister while she harvests, and the ability to simultaneously use plasmids and weapons was a very welcome change from the first Bioshock. Big Sister was also a great addition. Much of the core game of Bioshock is still here, but I think that is what makes the game so good. Took me 22 hours, loved every second of it. Definitely recommend.
I had always seen the 9/10 ratings on the Bioshock series and wondered if it was worth it. I play mainly multiplayer FPS games so this being a single player title turned me off. Boyo, was I wrong. Bioshock is easily one of the best single player experiences I have EVER had. The story is engrossing, the environments are so original and creative. The voice acting is superb. This game has all the elements of FPS's nowadays, but back in August 2007. This game proudly stands up to Zelda, Final Fantasy, and other single-player greats and gives them a run for their money. Took me 25 hours and $5, would have gladly payed $20. Now, would you kindly do yourself a favor and buy this game?
Overall great game. Similar to the first one without feeling like a copy. They made some good changes and some bad changes imo. Puzzles are fun. Unfortunately again there are little to no optimization options for PC, so it can be choppy if your PC isn't up to snuff. Took me 40 hours, doing a few of the sidequests. Very fun, but I have to say the original is just a little better.
The game borrows HEAVILY from Zelda, but that doesn't make it bad, in fact it makes it amazing. I have always wondered, with the widespread critical acclaim of the Zelda series why more games don't imitate it. Well, Darksiders 'borrows' and does it very well. Very very fun game, plot is iffy but very epic. Took me 22 hours to beat, loved every second. Cons: no real options as far as graphics settings. If you have an old computer you're outta luck. I always opt for performance over graphics but sadly this game doesn't even let you.
I had to make a counter review to Bunkerfox's because it is rated as too helpful. First he says the controls are bad. This is false. The controls are not intuitive, that is to say, they do not match the smoother feeling of Castlevania. However, this is remedied easily by sticking with the game for a few hours and you easily adjust. I had no trouble buffing myself to +50% speed and blitzing through the castle destroying everything in my path (loads of fun btw). So yes, the controls can be difficult to adjust to if you don't play a variety of games and are only used to one platforming style. The hero legacies are random, yes, but there's an upgrade you can purchase with gold to randomize them again. If you can't stand randomness at all, don't buy the game. The castle is randomly generated to a certain extent. The 1st area is always in the middle, the 2nd area to the right, 3rd to top, and 4th to bottom. You often will find rooms similar to ones you've played before, but each new map will be randomly laid out. The exploration phase of the game only lasts about 10-15 hours, once you've explored a whole castle, you're pretty much done exploring. It isn't like Castlevania with hidden or unlockable rooms or rooms you need to come back to after gaining a new ability. In other words, exploration is NOT a major feature of the game. The game is more about fighting, looting, and upgrading your stats. I loved upgrading my character and trying to beat my previous high score for gold collected in 1 run each time. If you upgrade your stats to maximum, you might feel like it's a grind, but it's totally up to you. Great sounds, decent music(gets annoying after a long time). As for the making fun of disabilities I don't think it's as serious as some make it out to be. Some aren't even real, and can be offensive if you have no sense of humor. Amazing game, very Castlevania-esque, gave me 50 hours of fun.
Be warned: this game is ROGUE. If you do not like dying a bunch and restarting from scratch over and over, this is not for you. If you do not like challenging games, borderline frustrating deaths, this game is not for you. I died over 300 times in 60 hours= about one death (restart) every 12 minutes. This is the epitome of old-school rogue games. Main difference is that each play-through is random instead of the same exact thing every time. That said, you will often find yourself playing in much the same manner over and over again. Items are random, so some runs you will get lucky and others you will get unlucky. At one point I considered it just barely above a flash game, now I find it's pretty decent, I played over 60 hours, though not all of them were fun. Buy it on sale, I don't value it at $5. If you're patient and willing to master the simple but challenging gameplay, give it a shot.
$30 for this game is ridiculous. By now it is at most worth $10. It took me about 15 hours to beat the single player campaign, which is definitely fun. The missions are exciting and the story is decent, but once I beat the main story I felt literally zero desire to go back through the missions and replay them for fun or to collect gold bars/bottles. The challenges are fun to experiment with, but I only played about 2 because more than that just seemed repetitive. Great graphics. Play on cadet mode because the other 2 difficulties completely flaw your bullet trajectories. I felt as though I could play on the harder difficulty, but it would just take more time, so what's the point? (it wasn't fun to "challenge" myself) I recommend if it's on sale for $10 or less but there are wiser things to spend $30 on.
I decided to update my review after I've been away from the game for awhile. I began playing in 2009. I thought it was amazing and quickly became addicted. Over the next 4 years I put well over 1000 hours into the game. I finally uninstalled it in fall 2013 and haven't looked back. This game WILL anger you. This game WILL frustrate you. This game WILL end up wasting a lot of your time. Whether its the queues, ragers who throw out games, or the fact that you're locked into games for a solid 30+ minutes, there's a LOT of time that goes down the drain. Out of my 1500 hours I probably sat around wishing I wasn't in a particular match, or waiting in queues, or being extremely frustrated for about 200 hours. This is a generous estimate btw, it was most likely more time. After I finally uninstalled the frustration in my life cleared up. I get along more easily with people and I no longer feel like I'm wasting time when I'm playing video games (even though it technically is a waste, haha). The game is fun, but I believe the MOBA genre is too new, it needs to be refined.
Easily one of my favorite games of 2013. Great exploration, good story, tons of action, rewarding co-op, very challenging gameplay. Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode is too hard to solo, you'll need to play it with others. Also the final DLC, Raid on Digistruct Peak is not a new story campaign but instead a small set of near impossible challenges that will have you grinding to "OP 8" which is another way of saying level 80 without the extra 8 skill points. In other words the final DLC seems rushed and unnecessary. Took 40 hours to beat the main story line but I played 500 hours total because it's just that much fun to challenge yourself with True/Ultimate Vault hunter modes and collect loot. The psycho and mechromancer add-ons are fun, but don't buy them unless you really like the game. Overall amazing game. Highly recommended.
