Even if the game had not been tremendously hyped up, the result is a flabby, hollow game. I played for about six hours, set it down, and simply forgot to pick it back up. Games like these are my bread and butter; I love all the Bethesda games; I love cyberpunk; I love moral gray areas with complicated and painful choices; I love crime, first person shooters, and open world sandboxes. This fails to deliver on every single promise the game suggests it contains. Character customization is beautiful, but the creation screen looks very little like the in-game view. And since the game is entirely in first person, you'll rarely even see your character except at the inventory screen. Once you're in game, you can no longer customize anything about your character. No haircuts, no tattoos, nothing. The crunch is spread extremely thin over many vague and confusing character stats and skills. These also cannot be changed. Well, towards the end game, there's an incredibly costly item that requires tons of grinding and then only changes a few very specific points and not others. The voice acting is good and I like the character design, but the story is definitely happening around you and to you. You're not a part of it; your decisions don't drive it. Even your character doesn't seem to drive it. They just do what other people tell them to do. Lots of talent went into this game, but it isn't coordinated. It's a bunch of talented musicians without a conductor playing from different sheets of music. Somethings are great, but the leadership failed this game. The code itself is clearly a mess with optimization issues, scenery "pop," broken AIs, missing features, and bugs galore. Unfortunately, the game has now been out for almost a year and there's no indication that this is going to be fixed. Sure, some patches have reduced game breaking bugs, but there's not going to be the love and attention this broken carcass of a game deserves. Ruling: Skip it, even on a sale.
