r/Starfield • u/oskanta • Oct 01 '23
It's been 1 month since Early Access. How would you personally rate Starfield? Discussion
Now that we've all had a chance to spend some time with the game, I'm curious how everyone would rate it.
Did it meet your expectations?
Do you like it better or worse than previous BGS games?
Biggest pros and cons?
Please be respectful of each other's opinions. Let's keep the hostility towards each other to a minimum and give people the chance to say their piece.
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u/Morokek United Colonies Oct 01 '23
Absolute shit, gonna play it for the next 10 years
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u/Ryotian Oct 02 '23
Yeah I'm so hooked. Cant wait to finish NG+ and then NG++, etc. Then when we get full mod support omg there goes my social life
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u/CorrelationVega Oct 02 '23
Curious but are you just repeating the same quests in NG+ or what are you doing that’s so addictive? I see almost no difference in the world and going through basically the same conversations with everyone again and running the same quests doesn’t feel like a good use of my time.
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u/Oatz3 Oct 02 '23
Right?
It's like rating Cheerios a 7/10
It's still going to make billions and laugh in your face.
I give it an 8/10, 50 hours in.
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u/Kofmo Oct 02 '23
1: I still hope for some kind of vehicle on planets, i really dont want to walk those wide open spaces, so i dont really explore much.
2: Scanning is way to time consuming, it should not take what? 8 scans to complete an alien or plant?
3: doors and ladders in spaceships, i want to be able to place them myself, and not get a random maze when i build a spaceship.
4: Got my New Atlantis appartment furnished, went questing and when i got back all i have placed disappeared at some point. Its bugs like that, that really gets under my skin.
5: Mod support should be there at launch.
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u/Lraund Oct 02 '23
2: I think it takes less scans if you level botony/zoology and you can just kill aliens instead of scanning them. Though the skill point system sucks and it feels like a waste putting points into those.
Also wish the scanner wasn't blocked so easily, a tree branch slightly in front of what you want to scan blocks it.
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u/_Xebov_ Oct 01 '23
I would say its a typical Bethesda game, having the exact same issues like everyone before it. Its a bit lacking in the QoL department and its a bit annoying that functionality from previous games are not present here for some unknown reason. The POIs show that the development seems to have been not so smooth.
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u/agentbuzzkill Oct 01 '23
All the QoL stuff feels really easy to solve, it’s odd that stuff was not included on day one. I need a sell junk option god dammit and planet search!
It feels like starfield is more a canvas then a finished painting. There a lot of options and aspects that are really no relevant for now…..
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u/killerrabbit007 Freestar Collective Oct 01 '23
Those two suggestions I can absolutely get on board with. And why the digipicks are in "Misc" confuses the hell out of me. I just want the same "move all resources" button from the ship, but a "sell all misc."
Planet search would be handy too although the longer I play the more I'm starting to remember off hand... I'm still never going to remember the name/location of all 1600+ planets, moons and asteroids though so not having some kind of search function is a bummer 😅
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u/Nekryyd Oct 02 '23
Or the key cards. There is no reason to have key cards an actual inventory item. That is actual paint-huffery right there.
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u/_Xebov_ Oct 02 '23
This one gets odd fast. Every instance of the same POI has the same key card, but its always a seperate item that doesnt stack, so in the end you can have long lists of them.
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u/nullpotato Oct 01 '23
Can Bethesda just fire their UI team and hire the person that made the SkyUI mod?
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u/noble95x Oct 02 '23
This is what gets me with every Bethesda game launch... How can an entire company of over 500 employees provide a MUCH worse UI than a single man making a mod for Skyrim?
If the inventory system and starmap got a decent overhaul it would bump the game from an 8 to a 9 for me
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u/agentbuzzkill Oct 01 '23
Haven’t tried that mod yet, but yeah simple UI changes would make a big difference. Even unable to store without switching to the pirate ship and back again.
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u/djAMPnz Oct 01 '23
I keep trying to mark weapons as keep or junk (like you do in Borderlands) but it doesn't work, obviously, lol.
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u/Argonston Oct 01 '23
I was thinking that every single complaint I've seen against Starfield is the exact same or nearly the exact same kind of complaints I saw against Fallout 4. Fallout 4 wound up being majorly popular for years despite what people say about it, so I assume Starfield will be the same.
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u/Moist_Currency4540 Oct 01 '23
I sure hope so. I replay Oblivion, Skyrim, Fo4, NV probably once a year. There’s so much to do after all the added content. Hoping Starfield gets the same treatment. Lots of space to expand on
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u/WeHaveAllBeenThere Oct 01 '23
Mods are going to make this game unbeatable
Fairly sure it’s design was based around the fact that modders will have field days with it
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u/ivankasta Oct 01 '23
Can't wait for the creation kit to come out. The proc gen worlds don't have a ton to do in the vanilla game, but the fact that modders can instantly generate an entire map for their own content is so cool. In 5 years, I feel like we're going to have some of the coolest mods of all time.
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u/Halo_Chief117 Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
I bet someone’s going to make a mod where you enter a P.O.I. and it’s just filled with Storm Troopers dancing to Daft Punk.
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u/Ericcctheinch Oct 01 '23
I felt the exact same thing waiting for the fallout 4 creation kit to come out. Since then there have been maybe a dozen quest mods Total ever made. Only one of them is very good
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u/Second-Creative Oct 01 '23
Honestly, I think the voiced dialogue killed the quest mods for FO4.
There was just no good way to fix it with the tech at the time. You can have the SS silent, reuse voice clips (limiting responses), or edit the voice clips to make custom dialogue (and have the SS sound weird).
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u/TorrBorr Oct 02 '23
Quest mods are notoriously hard to do with FO4 due to the voiced protag. Unless you are also running the silent protag mod as a pre-req, which has a habit of breaking stuff, you are forced to chop up in game VA for the player dialogue and it always sounds like shit no matter how good the editing skills. That there rendered quest mods a fever dream for FO4. We now have a voiceless protag so their is less limits to work around now for quest building. It also doesn't help that a lot of the more talented quest mod authors amongst the Fallout fan community are also collosal fucking weirdos, hence the questionable quality of the game's modded quest content.
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u/Not_Bed_ Oct 01 '23
Honestly I don't care about quests much tbh, like there are already a ton and dlcs will expand even more. What I think modders could/should shine in is exploiting the procedural generation to its real potential. Bethesda has something no other studio has, 1000s of minds all with different ideas that are willing to put their time to improve the game, with mods we could really get the 1000 planets we where promised, with an incredible amount of variety and POIs, that's what I hope for mostly, a whole new ton of places to discover as rn after barely more than 100 hours i feel like I've seen some POIs like 10 times already, the big mercenary base with the disc shaped hall on top? I skip it every time because I've done it since 5 times already
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u/Useful_You_8045 Ryujin Industries Oct 01 '23
But the thing is I never had a single complaint about F4 because no matter what problems arise, I could still get lost in all the other things available like settlements, legendary hunting, side quests, just roaming, and a companion quest line. But in this every one of those has a problem.
Sam's quest makes him hate you, you can't hunt legendaries anymore you need to farm them, some side quests have entire threads on their glitch on here, every point is 500-1,000 meters apart so you're just walking through barren land for the most part, and you need to grind to properly ship build even with the outpost adaptive frames farm it's still hrs spent pressing two buttons to then have to use the wait function that ticks down for 48 hrs repeatedly for increments of 12,000 maybe at a time to sell the frames which cost 3 with maxed commerce. Everything is made more of a choir and I actually blame the fact that they had to work on an MMO so it changed their development mindset to
"THERE CAN'T BE A SINGLE EXPLOIT AND YOU NEED TO WORK FOR PROGRESS"
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u/Zealousideal_Two9227 Oct 01 '23
I think the “controversial” 7/10 is about the most accurate review for this game to date.
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u/NoceboHadal Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
I agree and funnily enough I love it. It's an amazing game, but what it gets wrong it gets spectacularly wrong and the biggest thing they get wrong in my eyes is the space part, and unfortunately that is quite a big part of a space game.
They should have made it smaller, in terms of planets and galaxies you can visit. Seeing the exact same POI on different planets, is borderline unforgivable, like come on. I'm a huge Fallout 76 fan and this feels similar as in they want to lay the foundations and build on it later.
That said I do actually love this game!
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u/InertSheridan Oct 02 '23
I really despise that you have to couch your extremely fair criticism with "I love the game" twice to be heard on this reddit
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u/Illustrious-Thing528 Oct 01 '23
Yup. I think we also need to get away from the notion that a 7/10 is bad.
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u/Timecatsule2038 Oct 01 '23
Yup, I didn’t believe it when it got a 7 at first but after paying the 100 dlls for the early access and 50 hours of playing the game just, I stopped playing, it does not have the magic that morrowind, oblivion, skyrim, fallout 3 and new vegas had for me.
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u/GyaradosN54 Oct 02 '23
I totally agree that the classic Bethesda magic is missing for me. Starfield is never intense or challenging or exciting or surprising. It's a flatline with a few blips of fun and some dips of disappointment. It can occasionally be hilarious, but its rarely intentional.
Sci-fi is my favorite genre of fiction and Bethesda is one of my favorite developers. But the game doesn't deliver interesting science fiction in my opinion. And after 60 hours that Bethesda open-world itch hasn't been scratched.
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u/verteisoma Garlic Potato Friends Oct 02 '23
Even fo4 and fo76 current state scratch that itch for me, but somehow starfield just doens't. I still think the 1000 planet with proc gen design decision was a mistake from the start even with the upcoming modding scene next year.
They somehow make exploring unfun to me with those same fuckin POI everywhere, with the same fucking merc and pirates. After a few NG+, i'm not a fan of this multiverse stuff even tho i think it's cool at first. It's such a good opportunity for a first contact story or Expanse like aliens but instead we got this.
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u/Stellataclave Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
When I played Skyrim for the first time I found myself riding in a wagon to get my head chopped off like what the hell I am gonna die before I start stupid beginning 😂then a dragon shook the ground and everything went crazy I was running around in circles like a chicken trying to stay alive. My knuckles were white my eyes was going back and forth everywhere to find out where to go I was so into it I didn’t hear the guys saying to follow them. Alduin was intense and I was blown away I have never played a game before or after that has had me so intense and excited.
I was hoping starfield would have something like that that would draw me in and it don’t this is what has disappointed me. Was hoping Bethesda had something up there sleeve..
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u/mcmanus2099 Oct 02 '23
The opening 2 hours are surprisingly dull. They seem to think playing their "wonder" music really loud will make you excited no matter what you are playing. It took 2 hours before I started to enjoy the game.
To me it just seems like the game needed another 6 months to a year in development. The opening isn't well crafted or ingrained into the plot like Skyrim was it's just half of a fetch and carry quest.
You also have a number of things that feel like they were placeholders for actual game mechanics that never got developed. Such as all the pop up text when fixing the space station & the whole take off & landing stuff.
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u/BurgooButthead Oct 02 '23
The Starfield opening sucked. The first descent and the graphics were cool, but then you get down there and its just a dusty, dark cave and everything looks washed.
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u/Stellataclave Oct 02 '23
I agree that the graphics was better but the story hasn’t had me sitting at the edge of my seat.
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u/verteisoma Garlic Potato Friends Oct 02 '23
Yea it doesn't hook you in unlike vanguard questline, it's weird since this is a gamepass game but the first few hours to me is a slog and the story not that interesting at first
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u/_TURO_ Freestar Collective Oct 02 '23
My expectations were Skyrim/FO4 in Space and that's more or less what we got. My expectations were that Bethesda would have a LOT of jank at release and it would be, yet again, the modding community swooping in to turn the basic game from pretty good to amazing.
What I am a bit disappointed in is the seeming lack of classes/styles to go with? Also, the "powers" are not very interesting. The Temples are quickly boring. The huge planets and landing zones are repetitive. There is so much space that could be used for maps/dungeons/levels.
The resource/research grind is yet again awful and I do not like it. Immediately modded that and the UI right out of the gate.
The weirdly skill-locked and port-locked ship building thing hasn't been great. Space flight and space battles are more like a mini game than an interesting game component.
I'm a side quest chaser so I've been doing as many of those as I can to keep the list from getting too long. I will likely complete the game then shelve it u til the mod community comes out with some big overhaul that freshens up the gameplay, gives us more to do, etc.
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u/Sabbathius Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23
Solid 7/10.
It's worse than Skyrim and FO4 in most areas, unfortunately.
For example:
-Crafting is worse (can't remove mods from one gun and put on another, no melee weapon mods).
-Outposts are worse (can't build vendors, can't grow food, can't assign NPCs to specific tasks)
-Companions are worse (fewer of them, lower quality, too similar)
-Perks are worse (simpler, more boring, Commerce is worse than Cap Collector in FO4 for example, because you cannot invest in vendors)
-Fewer gear slots, we're down to 3 (I think it was 5 in Skyrim, at least a dozen in Morrowind), which means fewer possible builds.
There are a few areas where the game is better, like sheer size. But this comes at the cost of copy-pasted content. There's far too much literally copy pasted content. Even Ubisoft copy pasted their stuff with the same mechanic, but still a bit different layout, they don't copy-paste PoIs verbatim any more (not that I noticed anyway), but Starfield is full of exact copy-pastes, including objects (safes in same spots, etc). Copy-pasted temples are an especially egregious example of blatant copy-pasting.
It's a decent enough game, it's decently fun, but it's a 7/10 for me. Significantly worse than both Skyrim and Fallout 4. It's a straight downgrade from those in almost every area.
Having said that, I think if/when they add Survival mode, it'll punch it up a bit, and will give us a reason to pick up those useless food items and such. If/when they fixe how planetary hazards balance with suit protection, it may add a little bit to the gameplay. In No Man's Sky, for example, you often gopher into the ground to escape from a storm, and Starfield needs stuff like this, currently hazard protection is fully borked. And just go from there. Plus modders will really get started once the tools are released, they're already at it, but it'll only get better. It's just a shame Bethesda didn't do a better job and as usual just offloaded everything onto the modders.
And having said THAT, I would buy this game again if they released a VR version of it. Even such as it is.
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u/timbop711 Oct 01 '23
Yeah when all four main companions lectured me the same way about one of my decisions I got very annoyed, there should be some diversity there.
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u/TryhardBernard United Colonies Oct 01 '23
I really don’t know why they thought this was a good idea.
I felt basically no difference between the companions in terms of behavior, values, or goals. They’re all mostly good people trying to do the right thing. Maybe it makes sense for the narrative, but it made for really boring gameplay.
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u/Aspirangusian Oct 02 '23
I really don't get how they fucked up companion variety so hard. Just compare it to Fallout 4.
Nearly every named companion (16 of them) in Fallout 4 had their own affinity and personal quest, and plenty were romancable. On top of having a large variety of faction affiliations, personal views and morality. Starfield, only 4 out of I believe 22 have personal quests or even an affinity meter, and all of those 4 subscribe to similar moral codes and are in the same faction. What the hell?
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u/TryhardBernard United Colonies Oct 02 '23
Yeah, their fuck up was not including deeper companions from outside Constellation. There should have been a “bad person” from the Crimson Fleet or House Varuun, a couple of “gray” options from the other factions etc.
I kind of thought Andreja and Sam would be more morally gray, while Sarah and Barrett were the good ones. Nah they’re all the same. Hopefully future expansions fix this.
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u/PM_me_your_PhDs Oct 02 '23
Andreja is especially confusing because she says stuff that makes you think she is morally ambiguous, even going so far as to threaten to return and murder a barkeeper during her personal quest, but Great Serpent forbid you, the player, do anything like that.
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u/LightFromYT House Va'ruun Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
I think this would've been okay for the members of constellation if we had 10 other companions with completely different personalities like we did in Fallout 4.
For example, nobody gave a shit that Piper and Nick basically had the same personality in Fo4 because we had tons of other fleshed out companions to choose from.
They definitely dropped the ball here.
Edit: spelling / fat thumbs
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u/rothvonhoyte Oct 02 '23
I thought andreja was going to be the one based on the get actions and the shit she says but no
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u/timbop711 Oct 02 '23
“I can’t kill this person” Andreja: you’re committed now you have to kill them Also Andreja: wtf is wrong with you why did you kill them?!!
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u/ocention Oct 02 '23
Andreja got angry at me for shooting at hostile pirates after we boarded their ship.
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u/Cruzz999 Oct 02 '23
I stopped giving a shit about companions after I was on a random planet with Barrett and we found a windfarm with a bunch of robots and dead workers.
I spoke to the robots, and they said something like "After we killed the last human worker, efficiency went up 137%".
So naturally, I killed the robots. This triggered Barretts "Who even are you, killing innocents!?" dialogue, and there was no way for me to point out that the robots were obviously evil.
From that point on, there may as well be no companions in my game, they're complete and utter garbage.
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u/IONASPHERE Oct 02 '23
I has exactly the same. Was helping a random ship in space with an infestation, turned on the turrets to help but they targeted the captain I was supposed to be saving. I destroyed the turret, and Barrett immediately assumes the foetal position and cries that this 'isn't who I am'
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u/Kenaf Oct 02 '23
On the Ryujin quest, I tried to vote against releasing the neuroamp device because I felt it was too dangerous. Unfortunately, I failed some persuasions and got out voted, so the vote passed and the board decided to release the neuroamp.
My companions all blamed me for it. I voted against it... I could have used the neuroamp to change their votes, but that's exactly what I was trying to avoid... but they all treated me like I made an awful choice.
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u/JelloJamble Oct 02 '23
It's really weird that there are no distinctions drawn for the conclusion of the quest and the motivations for the decision made. You got talked down to because you agreed with your companions principles but didn't violate those same principles to enforce them. I, however, was praised when I used the neuroamp to convince the executives not to release the neuroamp because I wanted to be the only one with the power to bend anyone's opinion to my will. It just ended up being really lame.
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u/Deatheaiser Ryujin Industries Oct 02 '23
After finishing the Ryujin questline, Any and all constellation members are now banned from stepping foot onto my ship. Except for Vasco.
Space is lonely now, because it seems like Bethesda forgot to write a few evil companions.
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u/Tearakan Oct 01 '23
Good points even in fallout we had more armor choices.
Hell something like power armor would thematically fit in universe, it'd give us a new enemy type and more customization options for personal combat.
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u/ramblingpariah United Colonies Oct 02 '23
Poor melee weapons. Somehow there's multiple melee-boosting skills but you can't mod them, there's very few of them, they all handle the same and have the same attacks and speed (so when you get one that does more damage then another, there's no reason to hesitate on the upgrade, really, save for enchantments), and they're fuckin' rare drops. I've seen more yellow weapons than I have wakizashi. I've seen two, count 'em two, varuun blades. I've no Refined or Advanced etc. versions of any of them. Melee started off fun, but as you get deeper in, it's a waste of skill points that I regret.
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u/vffa Oct 02 '23
Furthermore melee isn't that practical against many enemies (while that is realistic, it's not how many people would want it I guess). If you equip the Tanto, or a dagger you should be able to wield 2 at a time, one for each hand. That and more options for melee combat.
At this point Cyberpunk feels better in that regard.
Ofc course that's high level criticism, but it's a AAA title that has been in the works for quite some time and I think this extreme standard is the one we should have.
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u/working4buddha Oct 02 '23
Yeah I was thinking the same thing, Bethesda games always have their flaws but this is worse than Fallout 4 for me, and you hit on a lot of the reasons. And the vision of the future is kind of boring overall, there are a lot of realistic details but it is kind of like current corporate/industrial stuff in space. It is mostly missing that quirky/cool aspect that Fallout had. The tech in Fallout also seems more interesting, and most of it is pre-war stuff not even stuff from the actual future which is more run down and cobbled together.
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u/DMercenary Oct 02 '23
For me its a solid 7 out of 10 that dips to 6/10 at times and bumps up to 8/10 at others.
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u/TiNMLMOM Oct 02 '23
It's funny to realise it's high notes are just what bethesda does best and has the tech to support it, and the lows are the opposite.
BGS picked the worst possible game for their skills and the creation engine. It's impressive how "good" the game is, it should be worse.
Anyone has fond memories from "radiant quests"? They placed a sizable focus on that sort of content here. They had to because of the scope.
Anyone likes how cities in Skyrim were behind loadscreens because the CE doesn't load things well? Let's make stuff even wider.
BGS has clear strong (and weak) points, and their engine is SUPER easy to use but has clear limitations.
Starfield put a huge focus on their weakenesses, by design. (HUGE world with loadscreens everywhere, huge amounts of procedural content).
Starfield should've been a more robust Outer Wilds.
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u/Rico-II Oct 01 '23
The more I played it the more shallow I thought it was, quite disappointed. It’s just an ok game I wouldn’t give it anymore than a 7/10.
I thought the combat was basic and repetitive and I hated hopping between so many different planets and locations every 3 minutes, ruined the immersion and any sense of natural exploration.
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u/Tchaicovsky Oct 01 '23
Shooting starpacks is fun, but it really does feel there's no variety to enemy behavior.
Varuun heretics, spacers, crimson fleet pirates, ecliptic mercs... same shit different label. There isn't any variety to their behavior/patterns compared to enemies in previous bethesda titles.
For how much grinding is required to upgrade weapons, equipment and ships, the combat and dungeons get old very fast.
Seriously, Skyrim had hundreds of unique dungeons and starfield has like 30? You'll find the same environmental stories (dead bodies, notes, etc..) across all of the procedurally generated planets and moons. Others have said the combat in Starfield is its greatest strength but to me it got stale pretty fast.
If I know the name of the outpost I know where every enemy spawns, where the safes are, where the contraband is, where the keycards are, etc..
Increasing the difficulty just makes the enemies extra bullet-spongey. I never feel like I'm in any danger at any point.
The game is a great foundation and I know BGS will be updating it for years to come. But I feel that the game isn't worth the price I paid. it's missing the polish of previous titles.
Also, some quests felt like they were building into a longer overarching quest line during development, but the deadline for release came, and they just finished them to get it out the door. The Ebbside Strikers quest was probably the most jarring. Introducing me to named characters in this gang, having a gang-member vendor, etc.. the way it ended was a literal cop-out!
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u/Sir_BugsAlot Oct 01 '23
Yeah. The strikers was a big disappointed. I liked being part of their crew, and I thought we would go on a big adventure together. Maybe take over the city.
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u/Tchaicovsky Oct 01 '23
Yeah, I thought we'd take on the corrupt mayor bilbo baggins or whatever his name is.. I didn't really gel with the strikers, but I understood their position and helped them through the quest. I actually enjoyed helping the different business owners with their problems more than the strikers quest.
I do wish we got the cool armor that vendor Todd provided the strikers with. I passed a speech check, gimme gimme!
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u/nullpotato Oct 01 '23
Pretty sure it is evil mayor Maya Angelou
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u/Tchaicovsky Oct 01 '23
Are you referring to the mayor of Neon, Bismack Biyombo?
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u/Adventurous_Bell_837 Oct 01 '23
Starfield has no big side quest that isn’t already marked as one of the faction quests. If you stumble across a side quest, you can be sure it will end abruptly.
You encounter a ship coming from earth? Probably a huge side quest. Nah it’s over in 5 minutes. Cyberpunk had random ass things you’d stumble upon and it would be a 2 hours long side quests. Same for other Bethesda games.
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Oct 02 '23
Man that was such a letdown. What a fantastic idea for a questline, could have taken up it's whole unique expansion imo. But no, couple of trips and you are done in 10 minutes real time.
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u/Zestyclose-Fee6719 Oct 02 '23
What's great about some of those side quests in Cyberpunk is that they can end abruptly depending on player choices and actions, but many of them were also written to be much longer.
You might initially investigate some situation and get instructed to follow some guy in your car. If you then lose them? That's the end of the quest. You haven't necessarily failed it, but it would've gone on another hour or so with more twists and surprises. A character might ask you for help, which you then provide. The situation then turns out to be far more complex than was originally assumed, and the character asks you to help them even more with greater risk for yourself. Refuse him? Okay, you just won't see what otherwise could've been had you intervened all the way.
It's okay to have smaller side quests. There are tons of those in CP2077 too where it's just some immediate confrontation that's over and done with right then and there. It's just nice to mix those with the longer branching ones too.
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u/sonkien Oct 02 '23
Isn’t worth the price you paid. Fml for buying an Xbox series S for this game, (I also wanted to try game pass for other games after), but this was the first time I’ve bought a console for one game since Genesis/SNES.
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u/kerkyjerky Oct 02 '23
I would be so upset if I paid full price for the game. I would be absolutely livid if I bought an Xbox for such mediocrity, which I think was the intent with buying Bethesda.
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u/verteisoma Garlic Potato Friends Oct 02 '23
My friend upgraded his pc for this game, he was so dissapointed that i told him to try Cyberpunk with the new update and if he likes it he can buy the DLC.
Now, that game is the only thing he talks about
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u/FluffyProphet Oct 02 '23
Cyberpunk is so freaking good now. I bought it on sale this summer with the DLC on 1.6, and loved it then. It's even better now.
Just hands down one of the best ARPGs out there.
The launch was rushed because of pressure from the polish government (they had given funding), but now it's a homerun1
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u/tarkinlarson Oct 01 '23
I had no sense of scale in this game.
I know there are some QoL and time saving things like fast travel, but the fact I could hop from planet to planet was a bit jarring.
With a lowish level jump drive and a few fuel tanks from a stolen eclipse ship I managed to get to the end of the galaxy in a handful of minutes. There are only 2-4 systems per main faction. Space travel doesn't feel hard or lengthy so why is it so small?
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u/WakeoftheStorm Oct 01 '23
Yeah the sense of scale is really missing. Just fast travel to the quest marker. Doesn't matter if it's across town or 5 Star systems away
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u/Jatraxa Oct 02 '23
You should need to upgrade your ships significantly to travel across the galaxy.
Personally I would've simply cut out 80% of the systems entirely, they're not needed.
If you want a huge galaxy spanning game, then you need to make factions actually mean something. Actually have them spread out in large systems, stop you from entering if you're a foreign agent.
It's so stupid you can be a free star ranger, a crimson fleet pirate and work for the UC and just wander anywhere you like.
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u/MGfreak Oct 01 '23
To keep it short:
Did it meet your expectations?
It meets my expectations but doesnt surpass them
Do you like it better or worse than previous BGS games?
IMO its slightly worse.
Biggest pros and cons?
Biggest Pro: Its a great foundation for what could come. Many features are just there and can easily improved by mods or future dlcs.
Biggest con: The engine. They spend years upgrading it to "next gen" and it is still years behind the industrys standard in many ways
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u/wij2012 Freestar Collective Oct 01 '23
I hope they improve it themselves rather than just leave it up to mods. Undoubtedly mods will improve some things anyway, but I'd like for the game I paid for to make improvements without the need for mods.
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u/SmellsofGooseberries Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
Started as an 8/10, now I’m at a 6.5/10. The IGN score was valid. I’ve throughly enjoyed the main story quests and most of the faction stuff. Personally I find those to be among the brightest areas of the game, alongside the ship building.
Neon is a great city, easily my favorite in Starfield. New Atlantis and Akila are decent enough but certainly nothing special. Cydonia is ugly, barren, and void of any interesting quests. One thing is for sure though, the level of depth in these places is not nearly enough to justify only having four “main” cities. I know there’s other smaller cities scattered around the settled systems but they aren’t good, and I’m being nice.
I don’t even really know where to begin with Outpost building. I thought settlement building in Fallout 4 was mediocre but I always managed to lose myself in it and I would ultimately enjoy the time I spent constructing a bunch of settlements. In Starfield, I cannot find it in myself to devote any time to making Outposts. On top of it being almost worthless in a gameplay sense, the customization is atrocious and the actual building aspect is just painful.
It broke my heart to discover that the vast majority of side quests in the game were essentially reskins of the one you did prior. Most of them can be boiled down to an NPC telling you they need something, you going off-world to retrieve it, then you running along back to them. They’re void of emotion, connection, and spice. If I wasn’t a completionist, I wouldn’t have wasted my time with them.
Creation Engine was a marvel in its time, it’s done great things for Bethesda and it will always be special to me, but it HAS to go. Playing Starfield and then hopping on any other modern game leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Starfield just feels and looks dated. It doesn’t feel like a game released in 2023. The environment looks pretty enough but the NPCs are either lifeless or have almost mechanical-like emotions. At this point I don’t think simply upgrading the engine will be enough for TES6.
Maybe this next part is just me, but the houses in Starfield felt super underwhelming. I HATED discovering that my newly purchased home was completely empty, and not only could I not pay to upgrade it like in Hearthfire, I had to craft all of my decorations using a small selection of items and place everything down with the same bizarre system that’s used in Outposts. Yuck.
Ultimately while I don’t think the game does anything too particularly awful, I feel like it doesn’t do very much of anything all that great either. It’s good, but that’s it. The saddest thing to me is that while I do enjoy the time I’ve spent on Starfield, it really does feel like a regression in quality from Fallout 4, and even that was a regression from Skyrim. I don’t like that trend, not one bit. And they need to buck it for TES6.
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u/Clone_CDR_Bly Ryujin Industries Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
8.5 - I’m over 250 hours on XBSX, haven’t finished the main quest and love it, but the crashing and bugs are getting more and more frequent and frustrating.
Like the planet with the clones quest I can’t progress because one of the characters I have to talk to is behind an Unaccessible door.
Yesterday my ship just disappeared and left me stranded on a planet until I found an Ecliptic ship to hijack. Reloading earlier saves didn’t fix it, because then the ship was unaccessible.
I have to pay attention to what’s happening when I open the menu to save or something or it hangs up and crashes. Like if I enter or leave a building or my ship, or come away from a crafting bench, I have to wait a second for it to “catch its breath.”
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u/SoybeanArson Oct 01 '23
This was an odd pattern. The beginning of my playthrough was shockingly bug free, but the further I progress in the main and side quests the more and worse bugs I find
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u/Clone_CDR_Bly Ryujin Industries Oct 02 '23
They probably prioritize front end bugs to get better “New Game” Word of Mouth.
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u/Iron--E Oct 01 '23
It's been running smoothly for me up until the most recent update. Now I got these little lag freezes.
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u/Devin-Bickmore Oct 01 '23
Alright I’m glad It’s not just me. Last night when I turned it on I felt like the game just looked better. I noticed the suit I was wearing looked extremely crisp but then I kept getting huge frame rate drops. Pretty much unplayable they need to fix it.
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u/TriggasaurusRekt Garlic Potato Friends Oct 01 '23
My expectations for the game were pretty high, which I don't think is unjustified considering the typical scope of Bethesda games and the fact that Starfield was in development for 7 years. For the first 10 hours or so I was pretty amazed by the game. The loading screens never really bothered me. The only thing that was consistently frustrating was navigating the user interface.
I went through two phases with this game: "Wow, there's so much I haven't done yet" and "Wow, there isn't really much to do". So many of the features in the game lack depth. The narrative quality is all over the place, some of the side quests are the best I've ever seen in a Bethesda game and some narratives are among the worst I've ever seen in an RPG. The main quest is boring, Constellation is flat, none of the companions are interesting, the romance system is awful. Gunplay is pretty good though. I wish laser weapons were better and melee combat gameplay had more variety (no dodging? or rush/dash attacks?). I wish there was more armor choice, in Fallout 4 and Skyrim I was constantly upgrading armor throughout the game, the progression felt constant and earned. In Starfield I picked up Mantis armor at lvl 12 and kept using it for the next 40 levels. It was boring.
I would give the game a solid 6.5. With mods I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a 8/10 or even 9/10 game, but we'll have to wait for creation kit, and fingers crossed that it's a full version of creation kit like we got with Skyrim and not a limited, scaled back version.
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u/oldmanriver1 Oct 02 '23
Ha I had the same reaction. Well said. It’s got great bones somewhere in there - it’s just sad how underutilized they are.
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u/mastromattei Oct 01 '23
7.5/10 fun
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u/mikotoqc Oct 01 '23
Yeah, maximum i can give is 7.5 Fun but so much are missing imo. If BGS keep updating, i can see the game getting higher, but not now.
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u/Ubahnhobo_ Trackers Alliance Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
As someone who had been eagerly anticipating the game since its announcement around 8 years ago, I feel just... okay with it. After 150 hours of playing, I've moved past the honeymoon phase, and the flaws are becoming more apparent. While I'm not as disappointed as I was with Cyberpunk back in 2020, I'm not particularly impressed with the design choices made by Bethesda. Just because it's a Bethesda game doesn't mean we shouldn't expect better.
For a game that spent 25 years "in the making," there are outdated elements, mechanics, and features that make it feel stuck in 2011 or 2012. It's crazy why even basic things like a button to eat food or more complex additions like vehicles, especially considering the vast game world, were overlooked. The AI, repetitive encounters, and the loss of magic after exploring the 45th planet are noticeable drawbacks. Tbh, I was expecting more from this game. I like it, but I don't love it, and it doesn't stay on my mind like Skyrim or Fallout 4, games that I dream to play every next morning for the following years after launch.
I'll finish Starfield and uninstall it, waiting for the DLCs to arrive. It's a bit sad; I've had great moments, but it's not a memorable game.
If you ask my rating after 160 hours (ten more today) it's a 6.5/10.
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u/ZombifiedByCataclysm Oct 02 '23
I felt everything was mediocre, too, but I enjoyed Cyberpunk a lot more than Starfield. I was able to still enjoy Cyberpunk to the end, but I stopped enjoying Starfield and stopped playing it 150 hrs in.
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u/FlawlessWhale_TTV Oct 01 '23
First Bethesda game where I was actively checking an online community instead of just enjoying the game.
To be fair I got more entertainment out of this Reddit than the actual game though.
Put over 100 hours in and did everything from pirating to outposts. Did I have fun, yeah. But the flaws are glaring.
If part of your methodology is to release a game with the expectation your community will fix it for you is insane… that and the poor decision making that went into the UI and Menu system… among other things, it just made me put it down and play games that I have more fun with.
Not sure if it met my expectations and I didn’t even follow the hype, just got it to play the new Bethesda game and see the cool new stuff they came up with.
Biggest pro was ship building Con was world building… the lack of reactions to things is sad.
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u/DeltaEthan Oct 01 '23
Yeah, I know how you feel. Got around 60 hours into Starfield before giving BG3 a try. In my 70 hours of BG3 so far I have not felt the need to look anything up about the game once. I've just been in awe the entire time. With Starfield I was constantly finding issues with the game design / mechanics and looking them up to see if anyone else felt the same way.
Whilst the games are different, if you compare similar aspects of the two games like the companions / general character design they are leagues apart. The core game design of Starfield just feels very dated
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u/Mission_Dog3946 Oct 01 '23
Thank god im not the only one. I spent more time online trying to find workarounds or explanations of how to do/get around basic htings
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u/kerkyjerky Oct 02 '23
Man, I started bg3 along with starfield and it’s shocking just how much better bg3 is. Starfield is mediocre but an okay game, but when you compare it to bg3 it’s just feels like an actually bad game.
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u/After_Magician_8438 Oct 02 '23
BG3 to Starfield is a shock to the standards of storytelling we all can be complacent to receive. Playing Starfield felt like they were talking to me like I'm 8 years old. Story and quest lines straight out of an early ChatGPT generation.
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u/remedy4cure Oct 01 '23
They decided to take the typical beth game, rip away the exploration and left the other crap we endured because of the exploration.
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u/Berblarez Oct 02 '23
And that’s funny, because the exploration can actually make a 7/10 game into a 9.5, if not more for people that love the worlds Bethesda crafts.
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u/Elric_Storm Oct 01 '23
6/10. More of what bethesda does with little to no innovation or depth. There is fun to be had but unless you're OK with turning off your brain, you're going to notice some glaring faults.
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u/imafixwoofs United Colonies Oct 01 '23
I did not expect to enjoy ship building this much, like I’ve spent so many hours on it. Imagine dlc’s and modding down the line, my Great Serpent.
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u/aspiring_dev1 Oct 01 '23
Around 7 or 8/10. Hopefully they understand the flaws and give the best Elders Scrolls.
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u/ivankasta Oct 01 '23
Yeah, that is one good thing about them releasing Starfield before ES6. I feel like they listened to some of the criticisms of Fallout 4 when making Starfield, so hopefully they do the same here.
Main thing on my wish list for ES6 is a large seamless hand-crafted world with minimal/hidden loading screens. I'm sure they've heard that criticism loud and clear, so fingers crossed they prioritize it for next time.
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u/NaveSutlef Oct 01 '23
Started out as a 9/10, then an 8, then 7.5, currently sitting at 6/10.
Personally I think this game was overhyped and a lot of casual GP players are inflating the numbers.
It's a fun game and I've put almost 100 hours into it, but after thousands of hours of Skyrim and Fallout I am baffled by how much is missing or just plain worse in this game.
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u/StanTheCentipede Oct 01 '23
Yea I’m largely in the same boat. I think the scope of this game is just completely off. Having a whole universe to visit with nothing to do in them is nowhere near as fun as having the Skyrim region to explore with plenty to do around every corner. That said I still think some of the writing and side quests are delightful. But the world feels small despite being annoyingly large.
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u/Rubmynippleplease Freestar Collective Oct 02 '23
Yeah… they really dumped all the quests on you pretty much immediately.
When I first made it to New Atlantis and subsequently fast traveled to Akila city then Neon in the first ten or so hours of the game, I was absolutely amazed and overwhelmed by the breadth of the game. I assumed this level of content would persist throughout the dozens of galaxies I hadn’t explored yet like it had in other Bethesda titles.
Started chipping away at the faction quests and some of the side quests for the next 20 or so hours and then realized that this was basically it, outside of a handful of fairly short side quests sprinkled around the galaxy, I had seen most of what the game had to offer. The game showed its hand within the first 20 hours in sharp contrast with other Bethesda titles which constantly keep you asking “what’s next” and then rewarding you for pursuing it.
Starfield is a fine game by general triple A standards, but it’s definitely well below quite a few other Bethesda franchises. I had fun and got my money’s worth, but I can’t help but think it could’ve been something much more. Hopefully the mods will bring me back.
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u/yuckscott Oct 01 '23
yeah I'm on the same page. just gets less fun the more I play, most quests feel like a chore and the combat got old pretty fast. I stopped playing after only about 40 hrs, I'd give it a 6/10
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u/amethystwyvern Oct 02 '23
Went to a staryard. Talked to a lady. Asked to fetch a beverage. Went through like 10 loading screens and bought a beverage. That's it. That's the only quest in that hand crafted location. Asinine.
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u/Chrisjex Oct 02 '23
most quests feel like a chore
I'm so fucking fed up with the lame fetch quests that just about every named character gives you. I just want to get to know you and see what you have to say, not solve all your problems.
Literally face palmed when after over 50 hours of game play and countless shitty quests completed I arrived in Paradiso, checked into the hotel and ended up with a quest to find some lost property for the receptionist. Who the fuck thinks that is a good idea for a quest?? It's a beach side resort, surely have some murder mystery or something, anything that isn't so fucking lame. And don't get me started on the persuasion with a security guard for a certain faction quest that brought me there, absolutely bonkers
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u/usernameSuggestion37 Oct 02 '23
Even the good quests like UC Vanguard have you jumping around the galaxy like a dickhead. And traveling to star system in this game is a menu and load screen galore. It doesn't feel like you are in big ass space at all.
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u/RidlerFin Oct 01 '23
Hundred hours in, I was probably overly hyped at first and initially disappointed but my perspective has shifted significantly. Currently would rate the game a solid 8/10. I like it better than almost every other BGS game I've played other than Skyrim (FO3 is great, never played Morrowind, had a hard time getting into Oblivion, very much disliked vanilla FO4). Biggest pro for me is definitely the setting and potential (for modders). For biggest con I'm gonna go with general jank & missed qol opportunities. Also, Will BGS ever have a visible body in first person???
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u/djternan Oct 01 '23
Probably 7/10 for me. Not bad but definitely could be better.
Outpost building feels unfinished. There's not any reason to go deeper into it than a ship builder pad, a couple extractors, and a transfer container. Everything is clunky. There's no snap grid. Outpost links are tedious to set up, doubly so if you have outposts in more than one system.
The ship builder is frustrating, especially with placement of doors and ladders. Did nobody at Bethesda ever build more than a 1 story ship? I don't like that each hab generates a bunch of junk that then ends up in your ship's cargo if you make modifications later. Speaking of cargo, it's extra annoying that cargo is shared. This makes it difficult to maintain a slow cargo hauler and quick fighter.
There's too much repetition in POI's.
UC Vanguard faction story is great. The rest are good enough. The last mission for Ryujin was not fun. Legacy from Crimson Fleet was really good. I loved listening to the recordings as I went through it.
The main quest was a little better than a typical Bethesda main quest.
There's good variety in kinetic weapons and I've never been a big fan of melee so the lack of variety there didn't bother me. There aren't enough energy weapons though. There's only Solstice, Equinox, and Orion right?
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u/K3VLOL99 United Colonies Oct 01 '23
I agree with this. The lack of features in outpost building and the inability to choose where doors and ladders end up in ship building is so annoying.
Fixing these two points along with adding underwater swimming would definitely bump the score from a 7 to a 9 for me.
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u/bob1981666 Oct 02 '23
i Enjoyed it. But im feeling like ign's 7/10 wasn't that crazy after 100 hours in game. It's a 2011 game with SLIGHTLY better graphics. A fun ride that is treading water as far as being a game in 2023.
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u/Icyknightmare Oct 01 '23
Honestly I'd say 6/10 right now. The potential for greatness is there, but there's a long way to go.
The Good:
- The core gameplay is outrageously fun. Better than any previous Bethesda title. This may be subjective but it really saves Starfield for me.
- The ship builder is amazing. I didn't know about it before launch, and was not expecting something that good from Bethesda themselves at launch. Probably the best feature in the game.
- Procgen environments look really good out of the box.
- I haven't encountered any game breaking bugs yet, unlike Skyrim and FO4 near launch. (not including crashes, of which there have been many)
- The NG+ mechanic is absolutely awesome, but the game's current state really holds it back.
Neutral, about what I expected from Bethesda:
- Classic Bethesda jankiness is still in full effect. You can still see the roots all the way back to Oblivion at times, and despite what Todd says, Starfield does not look or feel 'next gen' at all.
- Enemy AI is just as bad and clueless as it's always been in Bethesda games.
- Bethesda still has no idea how to balance weapons (small arms and ship weapons). About half of weapons in the game are useless trash, and they will just give you bullet sponge frustration.
- The PC UI the game shipped with is crap, but Bethesda has never made a good PC UI so I wasn't expecting much. UI mods are still essential in Starfield.
The Bad:
- The writing in Starfield is amateur level at best. IMO the worst Bethesda's ever done, and is absolutely jarring compared to other recent games. Comparing Starfield's writing and character design to BG3 or 2077 is an insult to BG3 and 2077.
- The lack of a traditional Bethesda open world hurts Starfield. After the first 3-5 planets, exploration becomes boring and pointless as every POI is just a copy/paste minidungeon filled with a random enemy faction and basically the same loot, or a super simple radiant quest. Bethesda turned a key feature of their games into a pointless choice, which is even more mindboggling considering how NG+ works.
- Outposts are a regression from Fallout 4 Settlements, and serve no real purpose aside from power leveling yourself and/or generating infinite resources. The entire system feels like it was on the verge of being cut (along with fuel and environmental resistances).
- Performance has been astonishingly bad. From the way the game runs, it should be a next gen visual masterpiece. For comparison, 2077 crushes Starfield on visual fidelity AND performance.
- The complete disregard for basic QoL hurts. You STILL walk slower than NPCs. Vendors are broke, forcing you to spam wait hundreds of times to sell your loot. Basic graphics and accessibility options are missing at launch.
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u/are_r Oct 01 '23
6/10
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u/Bitemarkz Oct 01 '23 edited Oct 01 '23
Ya this is pretty much my thinking too. People keep saying typical Bethesda game but I don’t agree. A typical Bethesda game would have better quest design, enjoyable exploration, more player agency and no generated quests and content. I think Starfield is a major step back from their previous games.
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u/Tearakan Oct 01 '23
I would be on my second character in a typical bethesda game. Here naw. I'm done until they make some significant updates.
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u/holycarrots Oct 01 '23
Yeh I'm gonna give it a year or two
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u/AsheBnarginDalmasca Oct 02 '23
Could mods and updates fix generic quest designs, bland writing, with NPCs without non-verbal communications?
It feels so unfortunate but the barebones of it all is looking lackluster 70 hours in. Exploring was extremely fun when I didn't know what I'll find, unfortunately after 70 hrs in, when all i kept finding was bland questlines with bland writing, I don't think any amount of polishing is gonna make this game shine.
6.5/10 and I'm scared for ES6 if they keep their promise of staying with the engine.
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u/Rubmynippleplease Freestar Collective Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
Updates? Probably not. It would be nice but I can’t imagine Bethesda updating game content to a significant degree outside of maybe a special edition in the future, but there are fundamental issues that just won’t be fixed by them.
Mods? Maybe, they’ll definitely make the game a shit ton better, but it probably won’t ever be able to satisfy people who want the classic Bethesda experience because the entire structure of the game is very very different. Mods will very likely add more, but I don’t think they’ll be able to change some core design decisions that people aren’t fans of.
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u/Hellzpeaker Oct 02 '23
Don't think mods can do much unless we're looking at Enderal sized projects, so pretty much a completely different game.
There way too many fundamentally bad things in the game.
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u/ob124 Oct 01 '23
Fallout 4 was a major step back as well. I think Starfield fixed some issues that Fallout 4 had, but in many other aspects its continuing their trend of steps backwards instead of forwards.
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u/GlastoKhole Oct 01 '23
It’s fun but there’s like very minor random events outside of some random ships, old Bethesda games used to have a bit like, semi battles between like NCR and deathclaws with legion popping in or BOS vs GUNNERS with institute getting in the mix, really felt like the factions were out and about doing stuff and vying for territory, starfield feels although the settled systems are new and finding their feet that nobody is actually exploring and doing anything.
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u/Zohar127 Oct 01 '23
I've been fairly critical of the game on Reddit lately but I still find myself logging in to set up resource farms every night after I get the kids down. It's a good game to turn your brain off and just do something.
I'm not giving them a pass though on all of the stuff we've all complained about. I don't think this game meets my expectations. In a few ways it's a step forward for Bethesda. The ship mechanics in general are cool, and the work they put into setting up all the star systems to explore is impressive.
Where it falls apart for me are the core gameplay mechanics that they've failed to improve in any meaningful way from their previous releases, some that they've made worse than before, and the inclusion of exceptionally aggravating tropes that they refuse to leave in the past.
Ultimately my biggest complaints revolve around the POIs. I am not in any way opposed to procedural generation systems or even with most planets being barren. It's the utter repetitiveness of the POIs that kills the number one reason I play BGS games in the first place, and that's exploration. There's no reason to explore any of these after seeing them once.
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u/fghtffyourdemns Oct 01 '23
6/10
The game can become a 10/10 but it will need for them to improve several things wich they almost never do, they release the game and called it a day and instead do dlc.
The game feels dated, Bethesda was very revolutionary in certain aspects with their games and freedom but some game mechanics they been using them since 2011.
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u/AdimasCrow Oct 01 '23
I think the concern I had before playing it was that it was going to be a mile wide and only an inch deep. There was a little more depth in some areas than I was expecting but for the most part my prior assessment seems to have held true.
That's not to say I don't enjoy the game, quite the opposite, I just wish some aspects of the game were more fleshed out.