I'm writing this with the understanding that this is very much a first impression - but after playing it for five hours straight, I think I have managed to play enough to form at least a basic opinion about this.

EDIT: I've since put a bit more time into the game. Whilst my opinions remain mostly the same, I have some better insight upon some of my feelings, and have some other things to mention. I'll have said changes highlighted in bold.

I've put even more time in now. Once more, my opinions are still strong. But some things have changed.

First and foremost, it's important to talk about, arguably, the game's primary feature - the narrative. I'll be discussing some very minor spoilers, but all of this was shown in trailers years ago, so I don't consider that an issue. Let me preface this by saying that player choice and "roleplaying" as a character are all over the place. Some quests are varied in their options, while others are extremely linear. Even still, there are some cases where picking the "wrong" dialogue option is very clearly discouraged, or throws the player into an unfavorable situation for picking something out of character. Otherwise, a lot of dialogue options are simply side-content that doesn't progress the quest at all. Further, the game throws you in without much explanation - Night City's backstory is shoved in your face a lot, but characters are given little time to develop. I felt insulted when one of the beginning characters was introduced by a "Six months later..." action-movie style cutscene.

EDIT: This dialogue flaw occurs often, but not all the time. Even still, there doesn't seem to be much choice aside from how much of a jerk you want to be - you're always still V. This only seems to get worse once the game "opens up," not better. Even outside of the intro, character investment and development is strikingly small - the game does little to get me to care for many of the NPC before that NPC subsequently disappears, dies, becomes hostile, or otherwise stops being plot relevant. I wish more characters stuck around for longer, as the ones that do are rather interesting.

Eventually, I was happy to see points in which one of my character's skills could be used to bypass dialogue or as an option for a quest resolution. Your choices do begin to matter overtime, albeit only in deciding which faction you want to side with at certain points within the game. Some quests are definitely more linear than others, even within the main story track.

Aside from a lackluster plot (thus far), the game's world is pretty to look at, but quickly loses its shine. The repetitive spam of advertisements is delightfully cyberpunk, and indicative of the genre - but it quickly turns the game's background city into an indistinguishable mess that's hard to gather much of anything from. The advertisements often seem to grasp the hyper-sexual nature of the cyberpunk genre, but do little with it aside from showing off boobs. The sprawling metropolis begins to reveal its flaws very quickly, as NPC vehicles take turns unrealistically hard, clip through objects, and even run over other people. Crowds pop in and out of existence frequently, regardless of graphical settings.

On that note, the game runs extremely poorly. I am aware that my hardware is far from the latest - i7 7700k with a GTX 1080 - but the game struggles to break even at 50 frames, with frequent dips into the 20-30 fps range, alongside microstuttering. If it were any other game, I would be more than happy to give this a pass - it's day 1. But even hardware that is far nicer than mine appears to be struggling in some cases, and after such an extended delay, I am disheartened to see so many graphical, visual, physical, and framerate-based bugs. Cutscenes will often freeze and stutter, objects will pop in-and-out despite the player standing right next to them. Textures will unload visually, and turning the camera rapidly causes considerable slowdown. Nearly every physics-based option in the game is broken in some way, and this can be noticed within moments. I pray that these issues are fixed with haste.

This would be acceptable if there was much of a game underneath to enjoy, but there is unfortunately not much here. Driving is floaty, and feels more akin to the muscle cars of the 1960s. Granted, I am only driving "low-tier cars," but cars not only handle poorly, they are often outright uncomfortable to drive, and hardly have any braking power. The roads feel awkward to drive on, and invisible walls are prevalent in places that the player is obviously not supposed to drive in - to the point that player vehicles are physically warped around at will.

Gunplay is mediocre. I don't feel particularly strong one way or the other - guns feel fine, but being shot has little feedback. I will definitely compliment the weapon handling - while some weapon placement on the screen is awkward, the animations and sounds are pretty kickass across the board. By far the most annoying part of the game's combat loop is the hacking. I previously covered some issues with it, but I think the most fair assessment is instead to simply call it "clunky." It's inconsistent, ranging from annoying to overpowered, both in regards to enemy and player usage. Stealth is fairly standard, to the point that it almost feels like it borrows elements from every other stealth game. Hitman body hiding, Watch-Dogs style camera puzzles, and Assassin Creed/Far Cry style stealth takedowns consist of much of the stealth gameplay. I don't hold that against it, as all of those systems are quite good - but it doesn't do anything unique with it. That's fine.

Melee combat is all over the place. Powerful enemies will teleport to the player and spam attacks that do damage even through the "block" function that the game provides for you, while lower enemies will stand still and wait for you to hit them. This inconsistency is indeed telegraphed in their levels (and within their quests), but the underlying melee combat system is clunky enough to put me off. I wasn't a fan of melee in the Fallout series, so perhaps it's just not for me in a game like this.

Player customization is surface-level at best. While there are many expanded options for hair, teeth, and even eyes, the complete lack of a body sculpting system is incredibly noticeable. I don't necessarily need the ability to customize every single individual triangle of my character model, but the fact that my only two body options range between having a moderately-large pair breasts, none at all, or giving my character genitalia of some kind was greatly off-putting. Moreover, choosing the female option noticeably breaks several cutscenes, with player hands clipping through objects - from an animation standpoint, it is clear that they intended for most players to play as a male.

EDIT: I also wanted to add a mild addendum that I did not mention initially - the game's UX is pretty looking, but incredibly irritating to work with. There are so many junk items in the game, and the HUD can become incredibly cluttered at some points. Even menus have this problem, with the skill tree being a largely indecipherable blob that requires multiple readings every time the menu is opened.

Summarily, I went into Cyberpunk 2077 with extremely tempered expectations. I was not expecting the game of the century, nor was I even expecting the game of the year - but I at least expected it to be playable. As of the writing of this review, the game barely functions on a technical level, and it hardly holds up from a design standpoint otherwise. Save your money for when the game is patched and is on sale. Otherwise, skip it entirely.

I'm writing this with the understanding that this is very much a first impression - but after playing it for five hours straight, I think I have managed to play enough to form at least a basic opinion about this. [b] EDIT: I've since put a bit more time into the game. Whilst my opinions remain mostly the same, I have some better insight upon some of my feelings, and have some other things to mention. I'll have said changes highlighted in bold. I've put even more time in now. Once more, my opinions are still strong. But some things have changed. [/b] First and foremost, it's important to talk about, arguably, the game's primary feature - the narrative. I'll be discussing some very minor spoilers, but all of this was shown in trailers years ago, so I don't consider that an issue. Let me preface this by saying that player choice and "roleplaying" as a character are all over the place. Some quests are varied in their options, while others are extremely linear. Even still, there are some cases where picking the "wrong" dialogue option is very clearly discouraged, or throws the player into an unfavorable situation for picking something out of character. Otherwise, a lot of dialogue options are simply side-content that doesn't progress the quest at all. Further, the game throws you in without much explanation - Night City's backstory is shoved in your face a lot, but characters are given little time to develop. I felt insulted when one of the beginning characters was introduced by a "Six months later..." action-movie style cutscene. [b] EDIT: This dialogue flaw occurs often, but not all the time. Even still, there doesn't seem to be much choice aside from how much of a jerk you want to be - you're always still V. This only seems to get worse once the game "opens up," not better. Even outside of the intro, character investment and development is strikingly small - the game does little to get me to care for many of the NPC before that NPC subsequently disappears, dies, becomes hostile, or otherwise stops being plot relevant. I wish more characters stuck around for longer, as the ones that do are rather interesting. Eventually, I was happy to see points in which one of my character's skills could be used to bypass dialogue or as an option for a quest resolution. Your choices do begin to matter overtime, albeit only in deciding which faction you want to side with at certain points within the game. Some quests are definitely more linear than others, even within the main story track. [/b] Aside from a lackluster plot (thus far), the game's world is pretty to look at, but quickly loses its shine. The repetitive spam of advertisements is delightfully cyberpunk, and indicative of the genre - but it quickly turns the game's background city into an indistinguishable mess that's hard to gather much of anything from. The advertisements often seem to grasp the hyper-sexual nature of the cyberpunk genre, but do little with it aside from showing off boobs. The sprawling metropolis begins to reveal its flaws very quickly, as NPC vehicles take turns unrealistically hard, clip through objects, and even run over other people. Crowds pop in and out of existence frequently, regardless of graphical settings. On that note, the game runs extremely poorly. I am aware that my hardware is far from the latest - i7 7700k with a GTX 1080 - but the game struggles to break even at 50 frames, with frequent dips into the 20-30 fps range, alongside microstuttering. If it were any other game, I would be more than happy to give this a pass - it's day 1. But even hardware that is far nicer than mine appears to be struggling in some cases, and after such an extended delay, I am disheartened to see so many graphical, visual, physical, and framerate-based bugs. Cutscenes will often freeze and stutter, objects will pop in-and-out despite the player standing right next to them. Textures will unload visually, and turning the camera rapidly causes considerable slowdown. Nearly every physics-based option in the game is broken in some way, and this can be noticed within moments. I pray that these issues are fixed with haste. This would be acceptable if there was much of a game underneath to enjoy, but there is unfortunately not much here. Driving is floaty, and feels more akin to the muscle cars of the 1960s. Granted, I am only driving "low-tier cars," but cars not only handle poorly, they are often outright uncomfortable to drive, and hardly have any braking power. The roads feel awkward to drive on, and invisible walls are prevalent in places that the player is obviously not supposed to drive in - to the point that player vehicles are physically warped around at will. Gunplay is mediocre. I don't feel particularly strong one way or the other - guns feel fine, but being shot has little feedback. I will definitely compliment the weapon handling - while some weapon placement on the screen is awkward, the animations and sounds are pretty kickass across the board. By far the most annoying part of the game's combat loop is the hacking. I previously covered some issues with it, but I think the most fair assessment is instead to simply call it "clunky." It's inconsistent, ranging from annoying to overpowered, both in regards to enemy and player usage. Stealth is fairly standard, to the point that it almost feels like it borrows elements from every other stealth game. Hitman body hiding, Watch-Dogs style camera puzzles, and Assassin Creed/Far Cry style stealth takedowns consist of much of the stealth gameplay. I don't hold that against it, as all of those systems are quite good - but it doesn't do anything unique with it. That's fine. Melee combat is all over the place. Powerful enemies will teleport to the player and spam attacks that do damage even through the "block" function that the game provides for you, while lower enemies will stand still and wait for you to hit them. This inconsistency is indeed telegraphed in their levels (and within their quests), but the underlying melee combat system is clunky enough to put me off. I wasn't a fan of melee in the Fallout series, so perhaps it's just not for me in a game like this. Player customization is surface-level at best. While there are many expanded options for hair, teeth, and even eyes, the complete lack of a body sculpting system is incredibly noticeable. I don't necessarily need the ability to customize every single individual triangle of my character model, but the fact that my only two body options range between having a moderately-large pair breasts, none at all, or giving my character genitalia of some kind was greatly off-putting. Moreover, choosing the female option noticeably breaks several cutscenes, with player hands clipping through objects - from an animation standpoint, it is clear that they intended for most players to play as a male. [b] EDIT: I also wanted to add a mild addendum that I did not mention initially - the game's UX is pretty looking, but incredibly irritating to work with. There are so many junk items in the game, and the HUD can become incredibly cluttered at some points. Even menus have this problem, with the skill tree being a largely indecipherable blob that requires multiple readings every time the menu is opened. [/b] Summarily, I went into Cyberpunk 2077 with extremely tempered expectations. I was not expecting the game of the century, nor was I even expecting the game of the year - but I at least expected it to be playable. As of the writing of this review, the game barely functions on a technical level, and it hardly holds up from a design standpoint otherwise. Save your money for when the game is patched and is on sale. Otherwise, skip it entirely.