This review is based on 100% completion and 42.6 hours of gameplay.
[h1][b]Recommendation:[/b][/h1]
Would I recommend the game? No, I don't think I would. As a mobile game, I think it is above average and decent, but that is for mobile. Having ported a mobile game to Steam, it needs to meet a different standard, and I don't think it meets it at all. This simply can't compare to either The Division from 2016 or The Division 2, both of which are on Steam and can be picked up for a few dollars when they go on sale. Both offer more content and a much higher-quality experience.
This honestly just feels like a quick cash grab, bringing a F2P game to Steam and hoping people will buy into the in-game microtransactions. For the price of one of the in-game packs, you could pick up one of the other Division games when they go on sale, often with the DLCs included, and get a much better purchase and experience. For me, there is no point spending money on this when I could spend that money on the other games, which are actually designed for and play well on the platform.
When it comes to the story, I wasn't interested in the slightest. It wasn't interesting to me at all. This game takes place after the events of the first game, and it feels like it takes away a lot of the work we did during that game just so that we have something to do in this one. It felt more like running errands rather than being an agent working towards a greater cause. With that said, the writing is poor and uninteresting.
The sound design is OK, and I didn't have any issues with it. I will say that the voice acting isn't great. It's a mixture of poor writing and acting, with very little feeling or soul behind what is being said, so it all ends up feeling bland.
The visuals are decent, although that is by mobile game standards. This looks a lot worse than the first Division, which is considerably older and still looks much nicer. Having ported this to PC, it would have been nice to see a graphical overhaul for the platform it was coming to. Overall, though, it's just fine, nothing great.
The gameplay itself is a miss for me. I played this with a controller, which Steam says isn't supported, and for the most part it does work fine. However, using the menus is a big pain point, so you will want to use your mouse. On the topic of menus, I had issues at multiple points where I would get stuck in a menu, unable to click anything with either the mouse, controller or keyboard, which meant restarting the game to fix it.
The game is also extremely cluttered with UI elements and pop-ups that you can't turn off. You get everything from tutorials and store promotions to pop-ups during combat telling you to equip gear you don't want to use. These can stay on screen for a long time. While there is an X to close them, you can't use it during combat because you don't have a cursor, so you either need to open your equipment and equip the item or wait for the timer to expire. Even worse, these pop-ups can block you from performing actions such as reloading, interacting with ammo crates, interacting with objectives or doors, and picking up gear. Overall, it's just really bad design, and these are issues you don't get in the other games.
I also found a lot of the movement and gameplay elements to be extremely janky, especially when it comes to vaulting and taking cover. It just doesn't feel great. If you are standing behind cover but aren't actively in cover, you can still be hit. If an enemy isn't directly facing the cover you're behind, you can still be hit. Trying to vault over cover sometimes just won't work, and you need to try multiple times to get it to work even when the highlight says you can.
Using abilities is OK, but again, there is a lot of jank. I used the Bulwark class for this game and, while I enjoyed it, there are a lot of issues. For example, when I tried to use my Shock Spike, instead of throwing it in front of me where I wanted it, it would often shoot off behind me or to the side, completely missing where I was aiming. If I'm using the shield or my signature ability, going over a small lip such as a kerb, going up steps like in the Precious Cargo mission, or sometimes even going over rubble can cause it to put the ability away and end it, while still putting it on cooldown. That can be extremely annoying.
A big issue for me is that this is an online service. While I do like seeing other players running around the open world, because everyone is on the same servers, if you're Oceanic-based like me, you're going to run into latency issues. This can cause enemies to teleport and jump around, bullets not to register correctly and other general issues that make the game feel worse to play. This is a huge pain point.
As I said above, there also feels like there is a lot of missing content. For example, there are no longer normal vendors that sell gear. They all sell resources used to upgrade and build gear, with only the DZ vendor selling a few weapons. Also, everything is extremely expensive to buy from the store items to even the normal upgrading system.
Building gear is also locked behind timers, similar to Warframe's Foundry. With a fully upgraded clan, that timer is around seven hours, during which you can build two weapons and two gear pieces. These also have proficiency levels, which unlock better chances and rarities, with higher proficiency needed to even get a 1% chance at high-end gear. You can also build one gear piece and one weapon at the BOO, but these take around 13 hours. It's just an annoying mechanic that feels designed to either make people play for longer or annoy the player enough to make a purchase.
I'll leave my complaints there, but overall, even though it is free to play, it doesn't feel great to play. Ignore this one and just go play one of the other two games, which are much more worth your time and money.
[h1][b]Achievements:[/b][/h1]
[i][b]Achievements at the time of writing this review are not difficult to unlock at all. They will just require time to unlock and are a big grind. There are also a few PvP achievements you will want to keep in mind.[/b][/i]
The only one I was concerned about was getting the exotic weapon, as the only ways I saw to get one were either through the battle pass or by grinding the DZ. However, once you reach level 30, at least that's when I noticed it, there are some packs in the store that you can buy with currency earned in-game, and these will give you an exotic. This is at least available at the time of writing this review, so check the store and pick up an exotic for the achievement.
Also, do the DZ achievements early while levelling to save yourself from running into too many players with high-end gear.
[hr][/hr]For more in-depth yet straight-to-the-point reviews, feel free to check out my curator page [u][b][url= https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45595645/] here. [/url][/b][/u]
