The world itself is jaw dropping. Unfortunately just about every other system in the game outside of art, writing & music/audio are unacceptably shallow in a deep "RPG" from CD Projekt Red. NPC's seem to have only 2 states -- walking around aimlessly, and when you bump into someone, everyone in a 5 mile radius hits the deck or runs for their lives. That's about it. The wanted system in this game is also atrocious. GTA 3 had a more complex police interaction system than this, sadly. Combat & weapons are a ton of fun. Each weapon is meticulously modeled and animated, and they all feel & sound great to use. However, stealth and hacking are a total waste of time. None of the abilities or interactions with the world are interesting, and all it does is pad out an enemy encounter by making it take 10x as long to clear. Unfortunately, if you had dreams of becoming a netrunner like I did, there's very little here to entice you longer than 20 minutes. Side quests and gigs are unfathomably boring. I remember side quests in The Witcher as some of the best writing & quest design in the industry. Unfortunately, side quests here feel like they borrowed from the MMO formula. Instead of a handful of meaningful side quest that take unexpected turns or tell engaging stories, we're given 300 points of interest that involve a bunch of enemies to kill and a few crates to loot. And how do you meet these notorious fixers? Let's just have them call you every 5 minutes as a floating head on your screen. Thankfully I haven't experienced a single performance issue, but I know the majority of people have been. Running everything on Ultra without RTX at 1080p. Again -- the game itself is absolutely stunning. No other open world holds a candle to Night City. But much like the corporations in Night City, it is simply a facade that tries to hide the fact that it is a shallow husk the deeper you look. Hurts to say it, but CDPR bit off WAY more than they could chew here.
Easily one of the greatest pieces of DLC ever made, period. The story was gripping and written so well that I had a hard time taking a break from it, much like how a great book can consume you for hours on end. If this is the quality of standalone DLC we should expect from CD Projekt Red, I can't wait to experience the rest of what they have in store for us.
