Just finished it, it really picks up in the last third of the game. I thought the ending was predicatbly telegraphed, but worked in the context of the game. Its probably something you dont want to look to hard it. Overall the last part of the game really redeemed it for me, I still think it was trodding old ground but it did it very well. Solid 8/10 if I had to give it a number. Not sure how much replay value there is, got more or less all the collectibles and the combat wasnt engaging enough to make me play through it again. Took about 11 hours to complete, for once I actually would have preffered if it were a little shorter.
I’m actually surprised how much the last part of the game improved my opinion of it. When I was 1/3-2/3 through I wasnt impressed at all. I felt that the entire game was uninspired (an opinion which I think is still accurate, but not as completely so).
Pros
->Some truly amazing looking vistas and setpieces (cant overemphasise this enough, some of the vistas were just amazing, think I may have strained my screenshot key)
->Elizabeth is a very well realised NPC and never once causes any of the problems one assoicates with AI partners or fetch quests
->Cohesive story which built to a satsifying (if somewhat predictable) conclusion.
->Enjoyable but linear level design (while the rails offer extra “volume” on the level they dont alleviate the linearity)
->Optimised fairly well, had everything running at ultra and no problems with framerates
->Plays great with a controller (I actually switched fully to controller early on)
->The visual effects for weapon and plasmid damage were awesome looking
Cons
->Inexplicable low res textures and low poly models
-> The ending was a satisfying experience but doesnt bear thinking about too much for fear of it coming apart at the seams
->A lot of the major NPC’s are cyphers who never get explained and explored (I felt Bioshock did this better, it really got across the personalities of the various important Rapture NPC’s). Admittedly this may have been a deliberate choice to frame Elizabeth front and center. If it was its one I disagree with
->Game is plagued by pacing issues in the middle part where it relies far too much on fetch quests
->Too little enemy variety, the majority of which are boring ordinary people
->Unsatisfying “boss battles”
-> Annoying technical issues like Vsync capping FPS at 30, mouse acceleration issues, etc.
-> The whole “Racism is BAD” (no shit) felt a bit insipid. The bad guys were entirely one dimensional, which made it a bit boring in places.
-> Felt Vigors were much more boring than Plasmids in Bioshock, along those lines I also missed the weapon upgrade system from Bioshock and there seemed to be a lot less ways to use the environment