Roughly 30 hours in now, just now ventured to Badlands for first time.
This is not hyperbole to say this might be my favorite game ever. There are a TON of things to fix as well, and this game will only improve with age. Pretty fucking excited to see where they take this in the next 12 months, as I'm genuinely in love with what was shipped this week (even in spite of things that annoy/bother me). Transmog/Barber need inclusion ASAP for a start.
This game is the perfect example of " the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". Taken individually, other games do certain things better. COD/Doom doing FPS mechanics better, as does destiny. The combat here is great to me though, and I'm really enjoying it. AI/world "aliveness", RDR2 did it better, though in a much less attractive, much more tedious package. Loot is done better in a ton of games, too many to list (though I like it here overall other than the transmog - would like to just cosplay as a sniper/handgun John Wick, suit and all you fuckers). Story is done better in a ton of games as well, TLOU, to name but one. In fact, I was gloating to my brother earlier about playing this work of art maxed out on the 3080, and was listing a ton of piddly little bullshit that I didn't like..... and yet......
....as a package, I can think of no other game I've ever played that has struck me like this one has (and a lot of that is thanks to the absolutely masterful world they've hand crafted here). It's secured its place in the Pantheon of Springboks GOAT games and I'm not even close to halfway finished yet.
GTA V, New Vegas, Skyrim/Morrowind, Witcher 3, Bloodborne, Persona 5 Royal. Rarified air. I literally cannot even comprehend the mediocre scores/reviews, but I guess that's a testament to different strokes for different folks, or perhaps people are just dumb faggots (hard to tell which sometimes). It's probably like Breath of The Wild, a game I liked but didn't understand any of the adoration for, or Animal Crossing or Pokemon or some shit. Crazy that their share price tanked after they made THEIR ENTIRE INVESTMENT ON THE GAME back in 2 days, with a ton of DLC/MP etc to come. This game will eventually make the company a billion dollars over their initial investment, and I'd be willing to put $$ on that. They didn't spend 8 years building that amazing city/world to use it up in 100 hours of single player gameplay. They watched Rockstar print $$ on GTA online and I suspect they're further a long on development there than we know/think.
Last little caveat before I bone Panam finally (she's a hot bitch), if you aren't playing it maxed out, full RTX etc I can appreciate and understand the criticism a lot more, as it looks like a completely different game on PS4 than the game does on a high end PC. That said, that's on you - Like buying the Lord of the Rings in 4k and watching it on a fucking RCA tube tv then going "wtf, how is this 4k, Frodo looks like shit!".