If I didn't already know this game was made by CDPR I would never have guessed. It's a far cry from the Witcher 3. Memorable characters and an engrossing storyline have been replaced by unlikeable cookie cutter characters and a garbage tier storyline with an antizin style mechanic to annoy and frustrate you. Most of the characters were instantly unlikeable, and as such I had no interest in their involvement in the "story". It's almost like they outsourced all the character development and "story" to another studio, in fact saying that I often got a Days Gone vibe while enduring the story missions, so quite possibly. Fortunately you can skip most of the cringe inducing dialogue, there aren't many occasions where you're forced to listen to it. You can also ignore most phone calls so people just send you a text message. The gameplay itself is great when you're allowed to just play the game. I went down the quickhack route, barely even touching guns, and the stealth combat felt solid. It is very enjoyable to go around the city hacking stuff and knocking out opponents. The sidequests kept me entertained. I enjoyed going after the psychos, and completing the various merc missions. It's just a shame that the storyline missions suck so much. I came across quite a few bugs. They were an annoyance rather than gamebreaking though, it's bad when you can't tell if your scanner isn't working because of a gameplay element or if the game has bugged. Also driving along and then hitting a vehicle that pops into existence 5 feet from your car made travel frustrating. In summary, it's worth getting on sale as the gameplay is good. Just brace yourself for the suck when it comes to the main storyline missions.
I don't understand all the 5 star reviews. Maybe it's because the bar for 40k games is so low this one just manages to peek it's head above it. It's a frustrating experience, from beginning to end. Balance - At the start the difficulty is overwhelming to the point it's caused endless rage quits. I dread to think how much money this company must have lost to the Steam 2-hour refund policy. However, then at the mid to end game it's laughably easy. Interface - Clunky, poorly thought out. Even something as simple as the screen moving when you mouse to the edge of the UI doesn't work properly. Items - Lacklustre. Due to the poorly thought out cognitive system, with some exceptions, I used the same weapons from the first map all the way to end game. All the others I obtained throughout the game were objectively worse. Combat - Tiresome. The enemies are varied, but by the time you start to see any variance you're so overpowered you don't care. See point above - Balance. Gameplay - Tedious. The mission map is a good idea, but it's horribly executed. You move from segment to segment basically getting random events happen, most of which are negative. This doesn't encourage exploration, it encourages either making a bee-line to the end goal or save scumming. Also they've opted for the hated ticking clock mechanic that ruined games like Xcom 2. So from the second you complete the tutorial mission you're already groaning. Developers - Ticking clock elements work in films as they build suspense. They do NOT work in games as it makes the player feel they need to rush through it. Overall - I nearly refunded initially as the gameplay was so frustrating. After about map 6 I got to the point where I just steamrolled every enemy I came across, then when the countdown was at about 80% I thought let's get this over with and selected what I presumed to be the end game mission. It was, and predictably I steamrolled it.
