After having played this game for around 40 hours here's what I have to say.

Pros:
- Tutorial system is excellent. It provides detailed, structured explanations to bring you up to a decent level.

- Graphics are fantastic although the anti-aliasing could be improved but is fine for the most part!

- Game-play is phenomenal, the flow of combat is extremely satisfying and smooth way better then MK-X.

- Fatalities are insane, the best in the series hands down!

- Sound design is excellent, punches and kicks sound satisfying alongside all the other weapons. Music could be a bit better however you rarely even focus in on it in the heat of combat so it's not such a big deal.

- Challenge towers. After the terrible and frustrating state these towers were in at launch I am pleased to say they are now doable and are actually quite a bit of fun. The rewards are varied with each tower and so you can take on the challenge to unlock gear, intros, brutalities, stones and player icons for your characters. You can also team up with other people online to take on a "Boss" type battle similar to tag team in MK9.

Cons:

- Varied framerates. 30 FPS in the Main Menu, Fatalities, Fatal Blows and Kritical Strikes and Krypt whereas the rest of the game runs at 60 FPS. This can sometimes be a bit jarring however I, for the most part, don't even notice it and in my opinion it does not detract from the flow of the game.

- Krypt: An excellent premise however the randomisation of loot and extremely expensive chests (13,000 for anything half decent) makes it so that you rarely get anything you want, with most of the rewards being items for the forge and challenge tower consumables rather than costumes and gear. Another thing to point out is that some items in the Krypt require currencies to use, mainly Kenshi's headband that requires orbs (which are used for crafting in the Krypt and are rather scarce to begin with) and eats them up at a rate of roughly 2 per second which is absolutely absurd! You get a large sum of Koins to begin with however once they're gone, and they go quickly mind you as everything is so expensive!, You can gain a fair amount of Koins and Hearts in a short amount of time however YOU HAVE TO SPEND KOINS TO RESTOCK THE CHESTS IN THE KRYPT!!! as once you've opened them they don't refresh! Meaning you have to spend even more time grinding for Koins which you won't get rewards from!

- Kustomisation: An absolute tragedy of a system, apparently borrowed from Injustice 2 (although I have never played it so cannot confirm) this system makes it so that you have to level up the gear that you wear in order to slot in stones that modify your characters stats in some way, be it bonus damage with a certain move or resistance to certain types of damage. Doesn't sound too bad right? WRONG! You have to level up EACH PIECE OF GEAR, so if you equip a new helmet you're back to square ONE!!! Also guess where all the gear/stones and skins are unlocked? That's right! the Krypt, so you have to spend HOURS grinding for Koins in order to even have a CHANCE at getting a piece of gear you want. Also you have to have the correct stone for the correct slot in that gear making the chances of having a matching set of stones for your gear EVEN SMALLER!!!

- Story. A crippling issue of audio video de-sync has ruined all enjoyment of the story.
I'd like to note that changing the in-game setting all to their lowest settings HAD NO EFFECT!!. Such as shame as what I did get to experience was brilliant!

UPDATE: A workaround is to pause the game, wait 5 seconds and then resume however while this does work be ready to keep pausing every 10 seconds as the game will quickly de-sync itself again.

Note: I have not had any connections issues or random crashes that other people have experienced however that's not to say these issues do not occur.

As a final verdict, which i hope will change in the future, I would still NOT recommend that you purchase this game and it absolutely pains me to say that. But it's clear this game has MAJOR issues. Even after two patches which shouldn't have been needed in the first place (it's like they didn't even play-test their own game!) issues are still present, the story de-sync being a hard hitter, the RNG Krypt system alongside the awful gear level up system and augments are still major gripes which is a shame as the amount of customisation is great, just don't expect to get the gear or skins you want anytime soon, unless of course they pop up in the store in which case you can purchase it with micro-transactions!

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Just to clarify a few points made in the comments:

My Computers specifications (or at least the most important ones):

i5-7600k OC to 4.5Ghz
Nvidia GTX 970
16GB DDR4 RAM

I can run the game at stable 60fps with High/Very High settings.

@barkythekat about entitlement:

No, this is not what this is about. If you spend £50 on a game, which mind you is a lot of money for a game, you expect to be able to unlock and have access to all the content in the game in a reasonable manner since you have indeed paid for it. If you have to then spend even more money on top of what you paid initially for the game to access over 50% of the games content, then something is terribly wrong.

@MADMAN:

I have over 300 games in my steam account, most of which I picked up at launch. I have only written 4 reviews, 2 of which are public. Why? well, most of those games were great at launch! and so I had no need to vent my frustrations! Also, my review is my opinion you may not agree with it but just shrugging it off and saying that I "just love to complain" is a pretty weak rebuttal of the points I have made.

@arracatinga:

I saw an interview with Ed Boon where he said they would be at 30fps, I understand they are "meant" to be at 30. However, his reasoning was that in order to do slow motion the frame-rate has to be halved as the mechanics are tied to the frame-rate of the game. (i.e 60fps full speed 30fps half speed) I dont have complete knowledge of the workings of the game so that may not be the full answer. I also said in my review that the fatalities and other x-ray type scenes do not detract from the flow of the game. The menus and Krpyt however, should be at 60 and I can't think of a reason for them to be at 30.

@Jan: about "inflation" and necessity of micro-transactions.

That is absurd!! you think these multi billion dollar publishers need micro-transactions to help with development costs!

The exact development cost of MKX, MK9 and MK11 by Netherrealm (a subsidiary of Warner Bros) is hard to find. However if we assume MK 11's to be in the range of $100M USD and your claim is that these systems are in place to help fund against rising development costs due to inflation.

Well, Warner Bros' total revenue in 2016 was $13.04 Billion!! Granted, not all of that would go to Netherrealm, however they clearly have more than enough to support MK11 over its lifespan.

To put that into perspective. CD Projekt Red who made the Witcher 3 spent $81 Million on its development and brought in 463.1M PLN (roughly $120Million) in terms of revenue in 2017 a far lesser amount than Warner Bros. Do you see them using micro-transactions or other systems in their games to help fund the development of Cyberpunk2077 or other titles they may be working on?

No, you don't. That's because if you make a good game, more copies will sell and you will get more money. Warner Bros have added this micro-transaction system not because they are short of money but because they want MORE money and this has to STOP.


A final note about the political controversy in the game. It may be a rather cheap shot to include politics in gaming. However, I personally don't hold it against the game and does not affect my rating as I am looking purely at the game play and mechanics.

The game itself is awesome. I wish they pushed out patches for PC faster and that there was crossplay, but I'll live with it.

The main issue I have with this game is that blatant cheaters don't get banned. In particular, there is one infamous PC cheater that lag switches every single game he plays. If you have the patience to actually play the game, he'll just disconnect his internet. You either lose or waste your time when you play him. What's worse is there is no way to block the player so that you can avoid him in future matches.

Now get this: This guy has been doing this for months. He is consistently #1 on the PC leaderboards and has had DOZENS of videos and posts made about him on various platforms. How is it possible that he is not banned yet? Either NRS are completely okay with him cheating, or they ignore the PC community completely. I'm not going to name him because that would get ME punished (isn't that ironic?). But if you do a quick search, you should be able to find him pretty quickly.

Truth be told, there is a very tiny amount of cheaters in this game. However, I just cannot recommend anyone support a game where cheating is practically allowed.

Fantastic game, horrible business practices.
I bought the Premium edition under the guise that all future add-on content would be a given. Was extremely saddened to learn that even with the premium edition I did not own all the DLC. For premium owners you'll find out that the masquerade skins are behind a paywall. Not something I want to pay 8 dollars for. Also not something you can grind for.
Then the aftermath. Well say goodbye to premium edition because it doesn't exist anymore on the store page because that would be misleading wouldn't it? You'd probably think to yourself "I'm getting everything right? it's the PREMIUM edition, right??"
Nah let's put all that content you wanted from the beginning behind YET ANOTHER PAYWALL
There'll also be the annoyance of one character release per 2-3 months that are so overhyped or stupid (looking at you robocop what the hell are you doing here)
Friendships? Paywall
New characters? Paywall
Stage Fatalities? Paywall
Anything fun? Paywall
I'm sick and tired of hearing the term "Free update" Because you know they weren't free before oh wait yes they were because I own this product that I paid my money for. What happened to buying a game for a set price and that was it? No more added costs??
Do I really own the game becomes the question or am I just renting it at this point? With so many added fees Do I ever have a "complete" game anymore? What else are you going to add after aftermath? Get rid of that then turn it into the super duper special mega ultra winner edition for an extra 59.99???

How much is enough? How much do you need to bleed from the average consumer? Remember when 79.99 was a lot to ask for a game? I wonder how much Mortal Kombat 11 will end up costing you once you have absolutely everything.

Final verdict 2/10.
The only reason it deserves any kind of score is because of the gameplay. Like I said, fantastic game HORRIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICES. DO NOT SUPPORT NETHERREALM STUDIOS (AND ALL THE OTHER STUDIOS LIKE THEM) UNTIL THEY GET THE MESSAGE THAT THIS IS NOT OKAY




EDIT - IMPORTANT! AFTER READING MORE INTO THE FAQ, THE NEW STAGES, STAGE FATALITIES AND FRIENDSHIPS WILL BE INCLUDED FOR FREE. HOWEVER COMPLETELY REMOVING PREMIUM EDITION FROM THE STEAM STOREFRONT AND NOT TELLING ANYONE ABOUT IT OR GIVING PREMIUM OWNERS ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE GETTING EVERYTHING UNDER THE GUISE OF "PREMIUM EDITION" IS ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS BUSINESS BEHAVIOUR.
STOP USING STREET FIGHTER DLC PRACTICES THAT GAME COSTS ABOUT 500 DOLLARS IF YOU WANT EVERYTHING
PLEASE MORTAL KOMBAT RISE ABOVE THIS GREED AND SHOW YOUR FANS YOU CARE! IF NOT FOR THE FANS THEN AT LEAST SHOW YOUR COMPETITORS YOU ARE BETTER THAN THEY ARE. PLEASE.


EDIT 2 - MAY 26TH RELEASE OF AFTERMATH. STILL NO UPDATES ON WHAT PREMIUM OWNERS CAN EXPECT
Possibly the worst thing about this (for me) is when you look at a new player vs someone who prepurchased or bought premium for roughly 100 like myself. A new player can look at this game and say either I'll take the vanilla edition for 69.99 or the full edition for 79.99...hmm I think I'll get the 79.99 one who wouldn't?
Then look at the unfortunate people who decided to support this game early on with premium edition and got scammed out of the masquerade skins, payed roughly 100 dollars already some even 120 at no discount, then feel slapped in the face when guess what your edition is now the vanilla one with a bit of dlc it's no longer premium and come pay 49.99 for the complete edition. COME ON NRS! THIS IS NOT OKAY

I want to recommend this, as the gameplay is pretty damn solid, but the microtransactions and currency systems are easily the worst I've ever seen in a fighting game.

Warner Bros and NetherRealm have made their beds, here; your average mobile game has less grinding than this. It infects every part of the game, right down to tutorials that try to entice you with tidbits of premium currency for completing them, or earning a single unit of another premium currency (there are at least 4 currencies if you don't count the crafting materials) per...fatality you perform? No, really, what? It's a Mortal Kombat game where even the fatalities are something you grind?

Warner Bros have a long track record of exploiting their customers, but this is just pure slime. NetherRealm have designed a great game, only to make it as difficult as possible for their fans to actually experience it.

I hope it was worth it.

Mortal Kombat 11 had the blueprints to be one of my favorite MK games of all time. The gameplay is fantastic, the story is actually great despite some missteps, an indepth tutorial for each character, a krypt that has Shang Tsung Narrating each new area. It had so much potential.....

Alas, all of this is marred by the constant online nature of the game. All of the towers are locked behind online, your currency, your rewards, and even the krypt is locked behind the always online gate.

But wait, there's more...

There's three types of currency, four if you count time stones( I don't count those augment coins as they practically don't exist for me), and they are gold koins, souls, and hearts. The koins aren't so bad but it's the hearts and souls that are killer. In the krypt, there are some chests that cost 100 to 250 hearts. It doesn't sound too bad until you realize that in order for you to get hearts, you need to do fatalities and brutalities. fatalities earn you ONE heart while brutalities earn you TWO hearts! You can get then in chest which will net you 25 but they require RNG and I'll get to that real soon...

(edit: as of now, it's 3-5 hearts. marginally better but still flawed.)

But wait, there's more....

Remember those soul stones? each soul stone chest needs 100 to unlock. However, you'll need to farm fights which only get you 10 per victory or hope that a chest has them for 25-100 but that also depends on RNG...oh, and some areas require you to pay soul currency to pass. repairing the pit area costs 2000 souls and getting once chest from the dead woods require 3000......


But wait, there's more...


Remember when i said that getting those two currencies would require RNG?apparently, the chest locations are randomly generated. there's no fixed location for the stuff you want unless it's in a soul or heart chest, making finding the stuff you want tedious unless you are into that sort of thing.


In short, This feels like a mobile game with the grind, different currencies, and it's constant online features for everything including single player stuff like the krypt. MK11 does not respect your time so you all should pass on this game and future MK games cause this will only get worse.

I'm jumping on the bandwagon here.

Love the game, loving the story, the gore, the graphics, everything feels fantastic and is a lot of fun.

However... MOBILE ECONOMIES DO NOT BELONG IN A $90 VIDEO GAME. This game is so peversely monetised with RNG lootboxes, at least three types of microcurrencies that I can tell, and unfair grind. We don't want this ♥♥♥♥ in our games, Warner Bros, take a hint.

Until these exploitative and malicious systems are gone, I will not be leaving a positive review for the game.

I like the game and think it's worthwhile if you have friends to play with and a steep enough sale.

It's getting a negative review solely because the AAA nonsense it comes with is really annoying. Always online DRM, mobile game-tier grind, giant 100+ GB install. Having to individually grind out brutalities/fatalities on a per-character basis in a MK game, only for that grind to be interrupted because I can't play the singleplayer mode when a lightning strike or exploding transformer takes out my internet connection, really makes me question if I like video games. And I do like video games, I just hate the tedious crap that publishers force onto video games, so no blue review for this game.

I hope MK12 won't be hamstrung in the same way, but it will, and I want the publishers to know that they're losing their precious early sales because of it.

Edit: Clarification on more parts

So, yea, having watched Maximilian D00D for like 10 hours, he was hype, I was hype, my friend was hype. And then the hype died and was replaced with disappointment.

The Krypt, which they've said they are going to patch to address the grind, is literally a predatory practice. Multiple forms of kurrency and the amount you gain is vastly inferior to the costs required. Intentionally making something terrible & then going "oh sorry, we'll fix it" then putting a bandage on it so it's no longer 'terrible' but just 'bad' going "Hey look, we 'fixed it', we're good guys!" while it's still just frustrating enough to make you spend money... that's the epitome of sleazy and predatory.

That's their goal, look like good guys fixing something they intentionally broke, making you spend money on top of the $60/$100 you spent to buy the game (of which the content you are buying w/ these MTX is in the game, so you already paid for it)

Here's a quick example: 90% of the 'heart' boxes shown on stream, cost /250/ hearts to open, each. You earn... 1 heart per fatality & 2 hearts per brutality. While exploring the Krypt, you can occasionally find bodies hanging in the world & they may have 1-2; It's about the same timeframe as a kombat & brutalizing opponent. So you are looking at a 3-5 minute fight for one-two hearts & you need 250... just to open one box & it has /random/ contents. You may not even get anything you want, or that is usable for your character. Which is a whole other layer of RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG (lootboxes, to get random stuff, and even if it's gear, it has random slots for the augments, which are also random)

Now lets throw in 'filler' items. There are 3 sets of icons for your variations, black/gold/red & there are 30 each, so that's 90 icons. I don't know how many kombat kard borders/backgrounds there are, but icons? If you have Shao Kahn, that's 2250 filler items in your Krypt item pool, on top of like 30 different konsumables for the towers, & like a dozen krafting materials; And those icons? You can get duplicates, so even if you get one from a box, you can still get another.


The kombat in the game? Really nice, fighting is actually good and stands up to past games. You will enjoy when you actually get a fair fight. The Story? Pretty epic. Actual single player content post-story? Absolutely frustrating, designed to make you spend money to bypass or speed it up. NRS & WB have gone out of their way to try & milk the game as a quick cashcow & are making themselves look like the good guy by saying they're looking into 'fixing' the intentionally terrible grind they created.

The Towers of Time are rotating random lootboxes. I say this because they are super difficult and you don't always know what the new tower will hold when it rotates in. Have to hope it is something you want. And if it is? Good luck beating the extremely unfair mutators unless you have a ton of farming done for Konsumables to counteract... or you know, you could just buy (eventually, it's disabled right now as of this review, I wonder why :thinking:) a 'Skip Token' to do as it says, skip the fight but get credit for it. Makes the towers an up-and-coming lootbox as you'll be too frustrated and unable to just power through to get your stuff, and buy with real money, the bypass.

Slight Addendum on ToT: They're still bad, not as bad, the patching has been working on it. It's still the worst part. Secondly worst right now is that we can't customize ranked sets very much, so some of the best looking or interesting moves are not tournament viable (looking at Shang Tsung)

Lets look at Graphics. The game is and is not FPS locked. The Krypt? 30FPS lock, other parts? 60FPS lock. It doesn't feel good when it flips through like that. If we could smooth it out to a straight 60FPS for everything, it would do wonders. Anti-Aliasing is sporadic as well and can be very distracting. As usual, a PC game ported from console doesn't have all the same options a 'made for PC' game does, and sacrifices were made, making this a poor adaption.

One of the Crashes to Desktop people are having? Apparently it's related to the RGB keyboards. If you disable the option ingame to use the RGB colours, ta-dah! fixed (at least for a few friends who relayed this to me).

I cannot in good conscious recommend this. And the only reason I didn't refund immediately, is because you have to own the game here on Steam to post these reviews.
-With hope the harsh backlash will make WB Games and NRS realize they have another Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and IJ2 on their hands and actually apologize and fix it, not this canned 'We made it terrible, we'll make it less terrible to be the fake good guys' that is currently going on. Microtransactions are destroying the single player post-story enjoyment, and the pure RNG is making it unfun to unlock things. Graphically the game is inferior to the consoles, but hey, we don't double-dip for online access like the 3 consoles (not a fair trade at this point).

Remove your god awful Microtransactions. Do not buy.

♥♥♥♥ the grind, one hell of a good game ruined by corporate cash cows.