i did not play this at launch so can't speak to any issues it had then, but cdpr have put a lot of work into this and it shows. there are probably a few criticisms still - traffic doesn't really behave properly at times, for as many buildings and locations as there are, i wish some of the elevated towers had more to explore (just more interior locations in general would be good, but the lack of high rise content in a city that revolves around them is a little bit of a bummer), once you run through the ncpd missions there could be some sort of expansion of a similar system because once you clear them out, there's a lot less to do, and i really wish they hadn't cancelled the once planned moon dlc, as that would have really fleshed the game out, imho. but the mod tools and phantom liberty dlc have added a lot to the base game. the new additions of vehicle modifications too are welcome, though i wish they were even more in depth (think, need for speed underground 2 - neon running lights and hydrolics, spinning rims, nitrous, pearl paints, tints, decals, etc). regardless, the game as it is right now is fully feature complete, does a good job of telling the story that's presented, has interesting characters and a world to explore. graphics are gorgeous, even on my older system (ryzen 2700x, vega 56 gpu, 32gb ram, 2tb samsung evo ssd) highly recommend
there is an active ongoing campaign to leave negative ratings for this game happening online, as seen on reddit and elsewhere. take that into consideration when reading generic reviews. i'm playing this on an amd r7 2700x on an asus crosshair vii with an asus amd rx vega 56 gpu with 32gb of ram and samsung evo 970 ssd; i'm not playing this in 4k in ultrawide, but at 1080p. my rig is essentially the minimum system requirements. so far after a few hours of playing, with everything sort of just left to default, the only issue i encountered was the transition from the cutscene to where the player is given control of the character, there was some jittering as it loaded in. i haven't gotten far enough in to higher density areas, and am still mostly in the starting area still, but as of right now on november 24, 4 days after lauch, on my 7 year old hardware, the game is perfectly playable. there are issues that developers have addressed with bugs, and i am expecting there to be patches soon, and continuing frequently over the coming months, so for the amount of complaining i have seen mostly coming from russian speaking people, given the status of the developers and their nationality, i think a lot of the big early reviews are just noise. if you are hesitant to play it, wait a few months, but as of today, right now, you can play the game on any console and even potato computers like mine, just fine, and enjoy the cheeki breeki. good hunting stalker.
tldr: game is pretty good. imho, about 8-8.5/10 on the scale. at least prior to the 2.0 patch, got steady 60fps minimum on kind of dated hardware, with almost everything set to high/ultra (i turned down a couple things in the settings, crowd density and bumped shadows a notch, also not running any mods), so the game is pretty well optimized for even older systems and looks pretty great throughout. for ref: ryzen 7 2700x, rog vega 56, 32gb ram and samsung evo 970 m.2 ssd fully cleared the map of side gigs, ncpd gigs, bought all the vehicles, did all the side quests and eventually beat the game after about 100 hours, and for the price, that's about the most anyone should really hope for in terms of how much content will my money buy me. quite a bit over, in fact. just my 2 cents. am only just starting with the dlc, but as for the base game, i don't really understand what all of the complaints have been - i had a good time with it, though i didn't get as much in terms of hours logged as i did with like witcher 3, but the game was good before 2.0, for me. i would recommend it, as this game is kind of a glimpse at what *could* be in the next generations, or their kids, future. story is good. voice acting is good. kinda wish that a few of the "locked doors" and building tops/interiors around the city had some more added gameplay, something like radiant quests a la fallout 4, or something, maybe if the randoms or npcs had a few more interactions, would be nice, but overall the game itself is fully feature complete and quite playable, and replayable, even for people who aren't on the currently newest hardware.
