Was captivated by bugs at release, stayed for the story and exploration, replayed 7 times for gameplay. Even with all the cut content and grand(er) plans for the game, nothing could top this one for me, it's just awesome.
Far better than BFE. Just as challenging as the first two encounters. Ton of cool secrets and traps, no shortage of ammo, lots of stuff to shoot. Turn off the character voices and you get the best game in the series. Large open spaces are there and are indeed completely pointless. But at least there aren't as many invisible walls as there were in BFE. So it feels fine.
