Longtime Stalker fan. I've played all the games and more mods than I can count. We expected tons of bugs from the new game, and they are definitely here. But there's more problems than just little "new release" bugs. Game-breaking bugs. Many of them. Your story missions will constantly break. Some break so severely that it will break the game - even loading old saves will not resolve it. At first I excused it, because Stalker games always have bugs at launch. But these bugs still exist after multiple patches. "It will get fixed eventually." I told myself, and kept playing. The game was extremely unbalanced. Enemies were too strong, taking 100's of bullets to kill. Weapons lose 50% durability in a single mission. Repairs cost insane amounts, and missions give you almost nothing. A few patches tried to re-balance it, but severe balance issues still exist after the patches - including new ones. "It will get fixed eventually." I told myself, and kept playing. The story is extremely bland, and focuses on random events rather than building on the existing story and (awesome) lore. The story has become a giant fetch quest extravaganza. Run here, get a thing. Run back. Now do it again. And again. "The story will get better if I play more." I told myself, and kept playing. The constant running and fetching hasn't stopped. It actually increased. Instead of running 500m, I now have to run 2km between missions. Mobs of NPC's are now randomly spawning within feet of me. My weapons have to be repaired after every mission. I'm no longer exploring and seeking fun new encounters between missions. Every sprint through this empty map is becoming a chore. "I'm not having fun playing this game anymore, and I'm trying to finish it purely due to the 'sunk cost fallacy' I feel from purchasing this 60$ game." I told myself, and returned it for a refund. It's more than just bugs. This game is nothing like the others, and ignores what made the originals so good.
