Why even bother with this. This could very easily have just been a created map on mapgenie and let the community populate it...
Supported this as a kickstarter so was invested from the start, wanted to love it. It's tactical RPG with decent story and graphics held back by some flawed mechanics and systems. Think Baldur's Gate with updated visuals. Graphics: Generally well done, limited character creation options though. Spells and animations are well done and thankfully the settings can be adjusted and vague advice for what to reduce to improve performance. Sound: Some great music and sound effects, rate this pretty well. Gameplay: Strong with a decent story that follows the previous game. Battles are turn based and tactical in that your party should synergise their skills, this is the flaw though in that it leads to a party that is all about buffing a single character to nuke the enemies out (usually a rogue works best) and these supports shrink from the combat themselves and just keep to propping up the DPS. The turn based system works well enough although there are times where the rules seem to be bent and even broken drastically to make teh game have advantage over the player that seems very lazy artificial difficulty. First 2 chapters are strong while the 3rd is really poor and the 4th barely scrapes it in with limited content and buggy quests. The crafting system is terrible and looks to have been added just as a trope, it is superficial and has almost no utility excep[t potions, it is a sorely lacking aspect of the game - this game could have really shined with some real effort in the crafting to make up for the itemisation. The game has random loot that very quickly becomes all about uniques and divine items and anything else is mostly garbage. A lot of the items have poor synergy and a slew of mismatched stats such that builds become directed one way but have confused stats in there as well. There is mod support that fixes some of the crap, but it is severely limited. Overall it is in no means a bad game but the flaws will shine through toward the end and sour the experience.
The game is great. Think Resident Evil crossed with a darker version of the Fallout type environment and Half-Life level of weirdness and story. Captures atmosphere perfectly. Graphics: Nothing special by todays standards but for their time great. The tone is excellent and will really bury you in the zone. Further there are tons of mods to improve texture quality out there that are pretty easy to install. Sound: Pretty great, and atmospheric. Gameplay: Terrific for an open world shooter/survival horror type game. Has a few issues with the engine lagging as it loads in the enemy AI, will be experieced as stutter and there isnt a lot you can do about it -search google for ini settings tweaks. Hits register well and hit boxes are accurate, at higher difficulties enemies can be sponges if you arent going for the head and the combat relies on you being stealthy/careful and not trying to Ironman groups (get used to sniping and creeping your way in to areas). Can equip 2 weapons and an armour suit and helment that have different bonuses (higher combat survival versus higher environmental hazard etc), along with 'artifacts' - magic stat boost items that have bonuses but usually penalties too (until the top tier ones later which have mostly just bonuses). Lots of guns to choose from but will probably fall to the usual 1xSniper and 1xAssault/SMG weapon. Bit of an inventory management game involved due to the guns and ammo types, armours and healing supplements etc. Lots of quests and exploring available. It has a few flaws though in the mechanics of the enemies behaving like they are psychic and have super strength to throw grenades. Engine can crash randomly. Mods:There are overhaul mods that are excellent to try, many of the better ones try to make the game torture and more hardcore (I Work Alone mod, Misery mod - Black Road start), they are interesting but tend to skew heavily certain ways and make some of the problems from vanilla worse. Definitely worth trying.
