First of all; a bit about how I like my games: Graphics and ambiance are very important to me. On this, it delivers big time. If I were not that interested in those two and more in raw gameplay and RPG features, this would've been a 2 or even 1 star review. It's great to run/drive around in Night City. The ambiance is fantastic, the NPCs are plentiful (and very, VERY buggy). The characters are pretty good, though the barrage of unimportant fixers and side characters giving you jobs will make you apathetic towards them. I don't care as much about characters as I should. The bugs as of now do not make it unplayable, but will pull you out of immersion constantly and sometimes do mess up your mission. I've been spotted and shot through solid walls/rocks/whatever a lot of times. Going a stealth build on Hard when you don't put points into healthpoints makes it not a very compelling game. You can't go 100% stealth because you will be put into fights where you can't (even if you do get to "hostile" instead of "combat" status) sneak around, and on hard with too few points in health/armor you will be 1-shot by grenades and 3-shot by bullets. Netrunners' abilities will take a third of your HP and if you can't get them in line of sight by leaning you'll die to other NPCs firing at you. This still came out way too early, and the marketing was stellar, because even if you don't count the many MANY bugs it's still just an OK game. It's not innovative at all, the story is so-so, but the ambiance and graphics are stellar.
Way better than expected. Runs beautifully, even on midrange hardware (R9 270). Frequent updates, free dlc, DRM free if you want, the way it should be! CDProjektRed gets it. Now for the actual game. Incredible amounts of stuff to explore. Almost all sidemissions are stories, a lot of them need to be followed to uncover information that can be necessary to complete the quest through preparation (high difficulty setting, you're about the same level as the quest). They're not just blank fetch quests or dull fights in repeating environments, every one is truly unique. Gwent. A cardgame. Totally optional. Lame right? No. Deckbuilding, decent complexity, collecting of cards, fun rules, strategies will actually mean something, takes hours to complete the gwent-related sidequests, and doesn't feel like a chore. The main story... Wow. Great writing, interesting characters, incredible attention to detail. Can't talk negatively about this, it's just fantastic, go discover it! The gameplay. What you would expect after all the praise this game has been getting. The fighting isn't boring or buttonmashing (maybe on the easiest setting it can be, but you'll get destroyed on the two harder difficulties). The skill tree is kinda meh, to be honest, but it doesn't take away the fun of fighting. What I mean with "meh" is that you don't REALLY have a choice of what to upgrade. You can go full alchemy, but it won't help much. You just can't go full signs (magic), because fast stamina recharge takes longer to get, and all the while you'll deal little damage. But still, it's really fun and challenging to fight! The item collecitng / loot is really fun. You'll find a lot of garbage if you do it right (meaning crafting the Witcher Gear when you can makes a lot of magic / rare items of higher level redundant or even laughable). If you like atmosphere, great story and a challenge, this game is for you. If you wan't to play on easy and enjoy the environment, this game is for you. GOTY
