And I'm not being hyperbolic. The game itself is great. Good writing, cool story, fleshed out, deep characters. Fun combat. ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC music. However, trying to play this with a friend is impossible. Literally, literally every single action triggers desync in some fights. This is especially bad in the DLC, for whatever reason. I spend more time reloading the session than playing the game. The latest patches have actually made the problem worse. If you're looking at this because you like 40k and intend to play by yourself, get it immediately. If you want to play co-op, forget about it. For me it's a 0/10 because how good the game is is irrelevant if I can't play it. I'll amend the review if/when they fix this problem. Edit: issue is fixed, was able to complete the campaign in co-op without issues.
Interesting setting and characters. Actual consequences for your decisions (that you may only find about much later). The plot is a cool sci-fi story, and as is standard fare for Iron Tower, you are not the chosen one -- just a (wo)man trying to make their way in the universe. How that turns out depends entirely on your choices along the game. Combat is mostly about consumable management, gear, and build optimization. But mostly consumables. A grenade or stim can really make the difference between failure and success, and there are just about enough in the game to make it through while making liberal use of them... without spamming. They are valuable and not vendor trash like in most other games. Combat is generally functional if not terribly exciting. It's also avoidable often. It's not too long so it doesn't overstay its welcome. It's designed with replayability in mind so like in AoD, you won't see everything in your first playthrough. This may be good or bad depending on how much you enjoy your first playthrough. In any case, it's a refreshing approach, and a genuinely good game built upon it.
I'm going to be honest here: I hated this game. I hated it for the first 5-6 hours, during which no matter what I did or where I went, I failed. I must be a glutton for punishment, because I kept playing regardless. And I'm happy I did. As a CRPG aficionado, there is one thing one must realize and accept before trying this game: the player is not the center of the game, but merely another actor in the world. The game won't hold your hand or coddle you. This means that scenarios aren't designed with player success at the center. If you aren't prepared, odds are you will fail at whatever you're trying to accomplish. This can mean Game Over if you attack someone, but more often it simply means that situations will be resolved in a way that you didn't intend or desire - but your progress will generally not be blocked. I'm not giving it 5 stars for a couple reasons. First, the game looks hideous. Think uglier-than-NWN ugly. This is an engine thing because I actually like the art direction and the portraits and armor designs are gorgeous. The second reason is that sometimes the game is made to be artificially hard. Traps are one example. The other is that social skills are frankly redundant. Etiquette, streetwise, persuasion, impersonate and trading are checked seemingly at random and you will find yourself failing social checks because you didn't have *the* skill the writer thought was relevant. They could have rolled those skills into one or two and the game would be better for it. My final gripe with the game is that content is distributed rather unevenly between the three acts. All things considered, I'm going to recommend this to anyone who appreciates a text-heavy, old-school style CRPG. Exploration of interesting locations, meaningful C&C, a rich lore, fun (HARD) combat, and a ton of replayability. These are the elements that make AoD worth your time, in a CRPG landscape filled with fan servicing, ego-stroking, bland power fantasy titles.
