Ah, I didn't see there was a pinned thread for user reviews.
Here's mine from it's own thread:
So, after around 80 hours I have reached to an ending. Not saying which one to not spoil anything for people "not there yet", but... well, it's an ending. And as I had promised and decided, I will put out a shortish review on what I experienced. I didn't do a 100% run. Not even close.
First things first. The game worked fine on a mid range PC. No slowdowns or stuttering at all. I encountered only minor bugs and graphical glitches none of which disturbed the experience. I have played and enjoyed much buggier games and compared to the worst ones, this was a very smooth ride in that regard.
Graphics and sounds
The games best and biggest asset was without a doubt the city itself. Packed full of visual details and even though the map wasn't very big, the promised verticality was present and gave the game more space than what it looked on the outset. It was very pleasant to watch and listen to and the Cyberpunk themes and aesthetics and feel were all around even if it wasn't always dark and raining. I was kinda bummed, CDPR did decide to go with the 57-year time jump and went for more "closer to home" with aesthetics, as I would've preferred the sort of more retroish feel of 2020, which would've looked more "weird" and "sciency" even today, and that would've given an extra flair to it. As looking how it does, even if very beautiful and detailed, it's all kinda... mundane and ordinary (for the lack of a better word). But nevertheless, the Night City they created is something of a marvel to look at and travel within.
A lot of effort is also clearly put on the cutscene story bits that look amazing. And the voice acting is mostly good.
All in all the graphical and audible quality is top notch. The guns sound like guns, the characters look like real people, the sounds of the city gave a good ambience to it all. And if you ask me, even less would've sufficed.
Writing, storytelling and missions.
The overall quality of writing ranged from passable to good with a few odd hiccups here and there. But then... It is very unfortunate that CDPR chose so very scripted and "on railsy" storyline and so heavily defined protagonist with their "open world" setting. The fake urgency of the chip killing V is just as jarring as Skyrim's "worldeater is coming to end everything" or Oblivions "hell is coming to end everything", where one really needs to struggle to maintain the "immersion" when everything is on hold while the protagonist runs around and collects all kinds of carbage in his pockets without a worry in the world. Here's a hint: If you want urgency in your game, put a clock in it and/or don't bother with an open world and just tell the story you want to tell in a game that takes the urgency into account. The game really wants to be played for longer periods of time, but the narrative (among other things) doesn't really give it the space it needs. It's the wrong kind of story for this kinds of game.
The narrative pacing was hasty. All the way from the beginning there was a feeling as if the writers had too many ideas and couldn't keep up with their own imagination. Things in the story escalated so quickly it felt like a lot of stuff was forgotten while pushing ahead to get it all written down one "block" at a time. A lot of the characters were left very superficial and there was little to no time to really get introduced and to care about them, yet the protagonist was written to feel very deeply and that created a sort of disparity and confusion. "Who is this character and why are we friends trustees again?" "Why should I care if that character dies and why am I helping that other one?" No time to think, just follow what was scripted. And Johnny's bits... Keanu's acting was as wooden as ever and the moments that put the player in his shoes were nothing short of frustrating. I found myself thinking, "Oh jesus, not again". Just like with the Ciri bits in Witcher 3. "Please let this be over soon."
The mainstory missions were not very fun either. Some of it has to do with the scripting, some with the gameplay and the rest is because they are so drawn out and boring. Generally the mission design is passable, but since you are doing the same things en masse during the whole game, these overly long batches with heavily scripted story bits are a chore to take part in. And I noticed that I didn't want even to do the main missions precisely because I knew they'd be an ordeal. And the storyline itself wasn't very interesting to take part in as a player. Maybe it would've worked better as an e-book, or something.
The much advertised "unique" intros were nothing but 10-15 minute peeks into what could've been a better story than what followed. The game was basically a Streetkid the game. It was the most thematically apt version of V when thinking about what followed the intro. Nomad was kinda there, but the Corpo was just jarring in how little of it carried over with V's character and abilities. A much better fit would've been a Cop that got played out due to the NCPD bureaucracy. But then... after the intro sequences you always turn into a streetkid anyway, so none of it really matters.
The Heist mission after which the city "really" opens up is probably the most longwinded "opening dungeon" in a game ever. And thinking about having to do it all over again every single time I decide to play the game, is offputting to say the least. It is also an early reminder of how the main missions work as stubbornly drawn out experiences with not so stellar narrative drive.
The "dem eevile corporations" thematic is surely "cyberpunk", but I felt it was way too underlined. During some of the conversations I felt like my V is some sort of left wing activist than a mercenary for hire with possibly only selfinterest in mind, or perhaps, you know, some player agency regarding the character. Like if the game was an RPG.
Turns out the best part of the game were the gigs. They worked as little confined stories told in a somewhat Deus Ex like environments. And doing them was actually quite addictive. They didn't drag on or pushed too much on the narrative side. They were just jobs that any merc would do with nice back ground stories and characters. They were actually fun to engage in, and there certainly were enough of them to keep the player busy for a long time. It's too bad the main story had to be what it had to be and not linked into V's newfound journey as a mercenary for hire. It would've been fun if - like that one single mission that I thought had the right idea with the prerequisite of collecting enough money to buy the required information to get things moving forward again - to have to work towards something and creating a web of friends and enemies while at it. But alas...
Gameplay
Leaving out all the obvious things like pedestrian, traffic, police and enemy AI's, the gameplay has something going for it. An intent if nothing else.
It was fun to get a sort of way out of balance cyberpunk power fantasy by simply killing or incapacitating everything stealthily from afar via netrunning using the environment to my advantage (cameras, breach protocol possibilities, quickhacks...), while being a total weakling if caught up. It felt very satisfying also due to the levels having a somewhat Deus Ex type feeling to their layout. Not quite there, but similiar. And this was especially for the gigs.
It is too bad that that's all there was to the gameplay. Either that, or going in guns blazing in which case the game devolved into a simple looter shooter.
And it's especially too bad since the fun that is there, was undermined by the horrid itemizationg and the almost equally awful character systems.
The shops in the game served no purpose at all as if you went on and bought an expensive piece of equipment, it would be obsolete during the next mission where you'd probably find a better one among some garbage on the ground. And even if you would manage to acquire something that looked excellent compared to what you have, it would be level locked somewhere 10 to 15 levels above yours. And the time when it would open up, it would be commonplace vendortrash or something to put into pieces so you can craft some shit that is equally useless. The leveled and gated loot in this game is a horrible mess that tries desperately to influence the players sense of "bigger is better; I want bigger and better" sensibilities and create some sort of addictive and forward moving gameplay loop. Well, it doesn't. It is just bad. And it is seemingly copypasted hastily from Witcher 3 that had the exact same problem with it's loot.
The consumables also don't seem to offer anything to the gameplay. It's thematically fine and good to have them, to keep the world feeling geuine with lots of different products. But they just are. The nourishment thing they have is not really worth anyones while. The good thing about them is that they don't seem to give you health. So that's something, I guess.
The crafting is also a bit of a mess. It devolves the gameplay into trashcollector simulation where you pick up and farm everything you can so that you can upgrade your skill and put a few largely worthless digits into your equipment or craft new ones you do nothing with, but sell. You don't even have time to get acquainted with your new gear before you find better from some trashpile, and so there's no real need to even upgrade or mod anything. It doesn’t even make sense that you are adding wires and circuitry to a fucking bandana or a tank top and have it offer better protection than an Arasaka kevlar vest. I hate to say this, but even Fallout 4 did this better and in a more believable abd enjoyable way.
The game hands you tons of money, but nothing worthwhile to spend it on. The buyable cars don't seem to serve no purpose, the cyberware is unimaginable additional perksystem for the most part, shops are pointless.
The charactersystems feel onesided when it is all more or less about either killing or sneaking, and not really all that impactful with the +5% here +10% there. It's not interesting. It just encourages minmaxing because if you do not make sure you deal enough damage with what ever approach to the game you take, you are in trouble. I did over 50k critical hit damage with my stealth netrunner with a revolver (and REF 4). Woo, big numbers.
The dialog is also copied from Witcher 3 with little thought put into it otherwise. The highly marketed "new dialog system" where you can look at stuff and get more options is simply a dud among the worst of them. Nothing was learned from W3. It is still the case that the written lines don't always coincide with the spoken ones. And choosing a line leading to full convo where you have little to no input until you can choose another convo starter line feels that the control is taken away from the player to say what he wants to.
I can't for the life of me tell what the people who designed all of this were thinking.
There's no social skills, there's no interaction skills apart from hacking accesspoints. Everything is tuned to create a combatant that deals ridiculous amounts of damage to enemies with ridiculous amounts of health. It feels like playing a single player MMO. Not an RPG. And it has nothing in common with Cyberpunk 2020. Whcih is a bleeding shame.
So overall...
I started a Corpo with 3 BODY, 3 REF, 5 INT, 6 MECH and 6 COOL. I ended up with at level 28 and 3 BODY, 4 REF, 10 COOL, 16 TECH and 16 INT. Or something like that.
The game is severely flawed in many aspects. There's little to no roleplaying there. The story is meh and way too heavyhanded. The city lacks certain technicalities and features that would make it feel better (AI, interactivity, reactivity). The itemization is horrible. The charactersystems are weak. The cyberware are just disguised perks.
BUT. Inspite all that I've said, inspite the harsh words. I found that the there is a very cool game peeking from under the shit and I had a relative amount of fun with it. I wouldn't have played it for 80+ hours if I thought it was all worthless. The fun came from doing the gigs and (some of the) sidemissions which actually gave a feeling being a merc in Night City and doing work to earn your keep. It was fun in a "well, that gigs close by, I'll just check that and then call it quits for today... oh, hey there's another one just there, I'll just check that one too...." And in that regard the game is really good.
It's just too bad that the gameplay is all about killing or sneaking and watching conversations happen. It's as if Ubisoft finally made a game worth playing. At the state the game is in, it is no RPG. It wants to be, but it isn't. It's a story driven action adventure in an open world.
Or if it is insisted that it is, it's not doing a good job at being one. Not a good job at all.
I wanted to check out if there's any sort of reactivity and C&C to any of this through different lifepath and decisions here and there (where there were decisions to be made), but knowing that I must suffer through the intro and heist again... I think I'll wait until the patches come and perhaps some non-story DLC.
I might've missed something obvious to trash or laud, but all the essentials are here.
Perhaps I make another wall of text in some thread at some point on how I'd personally improve the game, because lord knows it needs a lot of work to be the sort of game it was advertised and lauded to be.
As it is (and this is actually a lot from me because I do consider a 10 to be nothing short of a timeless masterpiece), the game could be rated something like:
6/10
(3/10 as an RPG, if insisted)
The game is incomplete. It tries very hard and the developement hell it went through might've had something to do with the bad and downright awful aspects, but it is what it is. It lacks (or does badly) features and systems a good RPG has, it lacks (or does badly) features and systems and good open world game has, it lacks certain technical things even a basic game has (e.g. AI). It pushes too hard on "cinematic storytelling" and visuals at the expense of everything else, and it shows. Very sorely.
It's not unsalvageable, but it needs a lot of more work.
