Reply to Fox's post: https://www.cheapassgamer.com/topic/341407-steam-deals-mega-thread-all-pc-gaming-deals/?p=13853744
As fun as Homefront: TR was for an open-world FPS for me & was severely underrated by gamers and reviewers alike (especially for those who played it in a not-so-patched-up state) - it still attempted and tried to do story, character, dialogue, and cut-scenes...but was not that great at that stuff. At every turn it looked like it was about to go somewhere w/ story and character stuff...it then wrote off characters & killed characters you didn't get to know enough so you have trouble actually caring about them; yeah, just like GUN did.
So...in the end, for me, Homefront: TR never ends up getting put above other great open-world FPS's that were before it...such as Far Cry 3, STALKER SoC and STALKER: CoP. Homefront: TR has a few interesting twists on the open-world FPS genre (i.e. its setting of North Korea invading USA in an urban futuristic Philly and especially the gun-part swapping mechanics), but unfortunately not much more than that.
It has been $8 before for HF:TR Freedom Fighter Bundle and even HF:TR base was HB'ed....and I did spend 35 hours w/ the base-game - and it is easily worth that kind of $$. Heck, I thought it was worth the $18 or so I spent on from GMG, a bit back. It's a solid game that's now in a solid shape.
EDIT:
About RPG's: one of the most important elements of an RPG is usually story & character development. RPG's are really supposed to immerse the player into the game-world. story, and become the role of the character they are given or character they create - giving them plenty of reason for all the leveling-up, grinding, skill-earning, etc. Often, RPG's usually let the player make decisions, often having checks on your stats, skills and/or equipment for if you succeed or not on an attempted special choice/decision.
But, these days, RPG's aren't what they used to be, especially in AAA space. As now they are often pushing these games to be more ARPG (on the character-build itself) than RPG (the decision-making). This is really evident in games like Fallout 4, which has more different shades of Good for decisions and has less Evil and Neutral decisions than even Fallout 3 and especially New Vegas; and also Mass Effect: Andromeda. In Andromeda, a lot of Renegade decisions went out the window, in favor or more different shades of Good for decisions or just straight-up MMO side quests of find X this, get X that, go to X areas, etc etc.
RPG's are adding action-elements, and action-games are adding more RPG elements - and they're becoming too much alike. They're blurring the line of what they are, turning into these very alike hybrids. Many of these games are not really being masters of anything, TBH. They're turning out to be jacks of all trades, in which many are not living up to any sort of expectations in many instances - especially if they're sequels to previous titles that actually excelled at something.
