All the negative reviews thus far are about the graphics. This one's about the gameplay.

I was so hyped at the start of the game. So much to look at, such a cool city to explore. I loved The Witcher 3, and couldn't wait to see what CDPR had learned in the past five years. Then I started playing the game, and felt my excitement slowly decay into frustration.

You start working for Guy X, that job goes wrong, so you start working with Guy Y, then you get a job with Guy Z, who needs you to talk with Girl X so that you can get Object Q from Guy R... I was immediately lost as to who any of these people were and why I should care about any of them. Every mission I was like, "Wait, what am I doing? Who is this for?" The game grabs you by the arm and yanks you along without giving you any time to get your bearings. It piles mechanic after mechanic on top of you without giving you enough time to get the hang of them. Combat is, somehow, *even less* interesting than The Witcher 3. Basically your run-of-the-mill bullet sponge shooter a la Borderlands or Destiny with some awful tacked-on stealth mechanics. My efforts to be a sneaky hacker have thus far proven completely futile--the most I've been able to do is get the drop on one or two enemies before I'm spotted and have to blast my way through 20 copy-pasted bullet sponges with no way to return to cover or avoid combat.

As for CDPR's improvements on their formula, I was disappointed to find that many mechanics that should have died with The Witcher have made their unremarkable returns here--tedious crafting, an overabundance of meaningless loot clogging an already overcrowded HUD. A character skill tree that requires reading a hundred different skills before deciding, "I guess I'll go with the 10% damage increase upgrade" or something equally statistical and uninteresting. Hundreds of weapons that ultimately boil down to "How much DPS does it have?" Oh, and carry weight, as the cherry on top.

Beyond the lackluster combat, the tedious and dated game mechanics, the world just feels uninteresting. Don't get me wrong, it looks *amazing.* But there isn't really anything to do other than the quests/content put there for you. I remember playing GTA for countless hours without touching a quest, just driving around, or blowing things up, or getting into escalating stand-offs with the police. I had a similar experience playing games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls. I believe the hallmark of a truly great open world game is when it can create a world you can have fun just hanging out in. I wasn't expecting Cyberpunk to be the next GTA/Skyrim, but I was expecting it to be a game you could have fun with just exploring around, getting into trouble... a game you could vibe to. As of now, the setting merely feels like a backdrop for a bunch of story missions, nothing more. Perhaps those story missions will get better, but as of now each one has been a variation on "Spot the person who's going to screw you over," and I have a feeling that isn't about to change.

As a huge fan of The Witcher 3, of the cyber punk aesthetic, and of open world games, 2077 feels like a huge miss.

All the negative reviews thus far are about the graphics. This one's about the gameplay. I was so hyped at the start of the game. So much to look at, such a cool city to explore. I loved The Witcher 3, and couldn't wait to see what CDPR had learned in the past five years. Then I started playing the game, and felt my excitement slowly decay into frustration. You start working for Guy X, that job goes wrong, so you start working with Guy Y, then you get a job with Guy Z, who needs you to talk with Girl X so that you can get Object Q from Guy R... I was immediately lost as to who any of these people were and why I should care about any of them. Every mission I was like, "Wait, what am I doing? Who is this for?" The game grabs you by the arm and yanks you along without giving you any time to get your bearings. It piles mechanic after mechanic on top of you without giving you enough time to get the hang of them. Combat is, somehow, *even less* interesting than The Witcher 3. Basically your run-of-the-mill bullet sponge shooter a la Borderlands or Destiny with some awful tacked-on stealth mechanics. My efforts to be a sneaky hacker have thus far proven completely futile--the most I've been able to do is get the drop on one or two enemies before I'm spotted and have to blast my way through 20 copy-pasted bullet sponges with no way to return to cover or avoid combat. As for CDPR's improvements on their formula, I was disappointed to find that many mechanics that should have died with The Witcher have made their unremarkable returns here--tedious crafting, an overabundance of meaningless loot clogging an already overcrowded HUD. A character skill tree that requires reading a hundred different skills before deciding, "I guess I'll go with the 10% damage increase upgrade" or something equally statistical and uninteresting. Hundreds of weapons that ultimately boil down to "How much DPS does it have?" Oh, and carry weight, as the cherry on top. Beyond the lackluster combat, the tedious and dated game mechanics, the world just feels uninteresting. Don't get me wrong, it looks *amazing.* But there isn't really anything to do other than the quests/content put there for you. I remember playing GTA for countless hours without touching a quest, just driving around, or blowing things up, or getting into escalating stand-offs with the police. I had a similar experience playing games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls. I believe the hallmark of a truly great open world game is when it can create a world you can have fun just hanging out in. I wasn't expecting Cyberpunk to be the next GTA/Skyrim, but I was expecting it to be a game you could have fun with just exploring around, getting into trouble... a game you could vibe to. As of now, the setting merely feels like a backdrop for a bunch of story missions, nothing more. Perhaps those story missions will get better, but as of now each one has been a variation on "Spot the person who's going to screw you over," and I have a feeling that isn't about to change. As a huge fan of The Witcher 3, of the cyber punk aesthetic, and of open world games, 2077 feels like a huge miss.