I put in a fair amount of time yesterday on this and some this morning. I'll go ahead and give my thoughts on it.
+ Looks
great. Particularly the lighting as I've been extensively through most of the areas if not all. A couple are pretty good atmosphere wise as creepy and I wasn't expecting stuff to detach from the ceiling and fall.
+ Controls are good
+ Unlock upgrades by actually using the ability/item. This goes for both abilities (Different grenades, how an ability works/functions, etc) and weapons (Increase damage & different sights as far as I could tell).
+ PvP feels fairly solid, but it will take some getting used to with abilities and what not. I like how you can only use weapons you have equipped and can swap them out at any time. Of course this removes all ammo for that weapon unless it's your primary.
+ Grouping system works well, which should be expected. I can join a friends party and warp to them and then if their friend gets on, we can merge our group into his or jump the group to him. Works pretty flawlessly from the bit I've experienced it.
+ Everybody can loot a chest found in a party so long as they open it (Square) before it de-spawns from the first person opening it.
+ Decent amount of stuff to find through the world, which seems to have its own score (Grimoire Points) attached to it.
~ The way PvP ammo works is a bit weird. Prevents the abuse of heavy weapons, which is good but I feel like heavy ammo should appear a
little more often. Though I suppose I should view the ammo like a vehicle to where if I'm too slow to reach it, too bad.
~ Buying encrypted equipment seems to always be at least 2 levels above you in the alpha. This is very annoying when you're level 8 and you're trying to get a green item in a slot but it's always level 10 to 12. More of an alpha complaint since I'm capped.
- Missions in the open world take me too far too frequently. Example: I start with a new character and grab the one 50 meters from the starting point and it tells me to go over to a level 8 area (as a level 4) that is a decent amount away. Then the next one I take from that area tells me to go back to the starting area. It gets annoying traveling back and forth. However if you're in a group, this usually isn't as bad if you split up.
- Bosses have way too much health in the alpha strike (except for the first of the three really, who dies pretty quickly). On top of that they summon a lot of adds (at least the final boss does) that make it annoying to where one slip up by the entire group and you have to start the entire encounter over. I would rather see about half their health and add a few moves to their move set.
Played for about an hour. VERY similar to halo 3, which I poured 400-500 hours into before my 360 died for the 3rd (and final) time. Wasn't too sure about this, but probably going to pick this up now. I would like a new shooter this Fall.
Now I can teabag you like old times.