So first, to address the elephant in the room, yes, this game is poorly optimized. I didn't suffer from any major performance issues, though I did have the occasional stutter here and there, and at one point experienced what seemed to be a memory leak, though that one was only after 3-4 hours of continuous play. My PC is pretty beefy though not the latest and greatest hardware. It can run most modern games on max settings without much complaint. I ran this on what it defaulted to which was "high." You can check the specs down below because Steam does that now.
With that out of the way, on to gameplay. As usual, the gunplay and combat are a lot of fun. The added movement mechanics are alright, though not really that impactful to gameplay besides maybe the dash for some boss fights. The new knockdown mechanic is just plain frustrating however and really only serves as an annoyance that breaks up the normal flow of gameplay. Some new enemies are also rather annoying. To whoever designed the stupid ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ turret enemy: I hope your pillows are always cold and I hope you stub your toe on a regular basis.
I encountered another problem that I don't recall having in previous games, though I could just be misremembering because it's been a while. I found myself being underleveled at several points in the story, like 2 or 3 levels below the enemies. Which was mostly fine, until later when there was just like a 5 level jump for no reason. On a first playthrough I typically mostly stick to the main story and sometimes do occasional side missions or objectives if I feel like it. I usually save those for after completing the main meat of the game. I don't really want to have to grind side missions just to finish that.
The open-world aspect of it is quite nice, it really makes the world feel big and expansive instead of just being a series of areas isolated by load barriers. And the exploration stuff is cool too, though it's kind of teetering on getting into "Ubisoft game" territory.
So onto the story. It's serviceable. At least it's not BL3, god. My main complaint with the story is that the villain is incredibly shallow and one-note. Like, what even is his deal? What are his goals, his motives? You don't know, he's just evil. He barely even makes an appearance, really only showing up just to talk ♥♥♥♥ and then leave. The funny part is the secondary antagonists feel way more fleshed-out because you at least have a decent understanding of why they're doing what they're doing.
Anyway, overall, recommend with an asterisk. Get it on sale, or get it when they finally fix the performance issues.
