Honestly?

It kind of sucks.

****

Yeah, I said it. This game is incredibly disappointing. Only four explorable areas? On which all of the story missions take place? What a joke.

"Exploration" is supposed to be a theme of this game, but it's impossible with all the kill barriers on the maps. Is finding loot chests and dead ghosts really the extent of the exploration? That's pathetic. I'm sorry, but it's pathetic!

The story is thinner than a Brazilian supermodel, and there's so little of it that it's impossible for me to actually get invested in. It's mildly interesting, nothing more.

Story missions are too short.

The campaign, taken as a whole, is too short.

For a game of this scope and longevity, there is far too little actual content.

The game hasn't been out 24 hours and I'm already sick of the wave-after-wave Firefight-esque mission structure. Open those doors faster, Dinklebot!

Loot grinding is boring as hell. I like cool weapons and unlockables, but to make that the main focus of the entire game was misguided at best.

AI is ridiculously stupid until you get to higher levels. Bosses have only one move set (shoot, shoot, shoot) and do not react dynamically to anything the player does to them. This ruins Strikes for me. When they did it with Sepiks Prime in the beta, I assumed it was just that specific boss's preferred form of combat, but nope - every boss fights this way. Every boss battle feels completely identical. Pathetic.

For a supposedly "social" game, there are shockingly few ways to communicate with your fellow players.

I will concede that PvP is fun, but unfortunately it has balance issues (still). This is the only game mode that has any long-term viability, IMO.

Basic combat is also fun. Purely from a game mechanics POV, Destiny succeeds. The shooting feels good. This is the main reason why PvP is as good as it is - it's just unadulterated shooting, with no repetitive mission structure or stupid AI to soil the experience.

****

Holy shit, even after lowering my expectations significantly from what was advertised by Bungie's insane hype machine, I'm still disappointed. I can honestly say that this is the first Bungie game that has inspired these feelings in me.

I don't mean to shit on anyone's parade here, but I can't help but be massively disappointed with this game. I like the idea of it - a shared world shooter has incredible potential as a story and a social experience, and the universe Bungie has built for this game is fresh and compelling, but the execution is just awful. Bungie focused on all of the wrong things. Early customer reviews seem to fall in line with that general assessment.

Sorry, Bungie. I really, really, like really wanted to love this game.

But I don't.

Says the guy who just wasn't excited for it.

Honestly, giving an opinion on this type of game after 12 hours of playing is like visiting Baltimore and giving an opinion on North America. Give it time.

I wasn't very excited for it because, after playing the beta, I realized that the game failed to live up to the hype Bungie generated for it. They advertised an open world filled with exploration and a compelling story, and the beta did not deliver on any of those promises.

So I had to lower my expectations so far that I was basically anticipating an expensive loot grinder, which is exactly what the game turned out to be.

But even after lowering my expectations, I was still taken aback at just how barren and repetitive this game is. Is this really something Bungie expects us to still be playing three months from now? In what way does Destiny sustain that kind of a population? The story can be beaten in a day, missions and strikes are all way too similar to each other, and PvP, while fun, can't hold a candle to offerings from Bungie's competitors (including, hilariously enough, the Halo franchise).

At this point, everything rides on the Raid being balls-to-the-wall awesome, and on Bungie coming to their senses and producing more content for this thing before people give up on it.

I think my biggest disappointment with explore mode is that there is nothing of consequence to discover. You can't explore the terrain beyond Bungie's enclosed play pen, you can't stumble upon anything story relevant, and the side missions are formulaic, repetitive, and devoid of any sense of weight. So you can discover loot chests and dead ghosts, but honestly... So what? It feels empty. It's like, "You found a dead ghost, here's a cookie!" I have no reason to care. I have no incentive to spend time looking for them.

Exploration should be about discovery and surprise. You shouldn't walk into explore mode with a particular goal in mind. That just makes it feel smaller. "Finding the ghosts" is boring as hell. I want to be surprised!

Loot grinding is boring as hell. I like cool weapons and unlockables, but to make that the main focus of the entire game was misguided at best.

#codywasright

Hey, I never disagreed with you.

And to be absolutely clear to everybody, I expected a loot grind after playing the beta, but I didn't anticipate that the content would be this barren or repetitive.

Have you played around in the 3v3 Skirmish playlist? I'm really enjoying it, surprisingly. The revive mechanic draws the teams together in spite of the smaller numbers, which in turn allow each player to have a greater effect on the match instead of getting bogged down by 5 incompetents spamming their supers on pikes.

To be clear, you're saying you beat the entire story campaign in under 12 hours?
Or are you saying that it's so repetitive and thin that after 12 hours you don't want to progress further in the story?

3v3 is a lot of fun. Like I said, PvP is Destiny's strong point, and it's the only thing that has a chance at keeping this game viable. (For me, at least.)

I have not yet beaten the entire campaign. I'm at Mars. So the latter, I guess. (FYI, it took me about 6 hours to get this far. I didn't time it, but that's a good approximation.)

The cinematics and dialogue pick up a bit of speed after you leave the Moon (once things actually start happening) but it's still a very thin story conveyed through cookie-cutter repetitive missions.

I'm going to power through until the end, but I'm at Mars now, which means I'm over 75% of the way there, and it still hasn't grabbed me.

I wonder if that is a consequence of disk size limitations (thanks, cross-generational support!) or of Marty getting shafted out of Bungie before the game was finished.

I wonder if that is a consequence of disk size limitations (thanks, cross-generational support!) or of Marty getting shafted out of Bungie before the game was finished.

Given the timing of his shafting, and the overall time spent developing the game, Marty was probably in vacation mode by the time he left. If he still had a significant amount of music left to compose with a few months remaining (which I doubt) that would be a good reason to get him out. By all accounts though the music for Destiny was finished. What you hear in Destiny is the result of what Marty did.

Interesting. Well here is hoping the last 25% ties it all together while still leaving room to add on to the story over the next number of years.

I now have my game in hand, so it's time to go home and give it a try myself :)

And I should be clear.

All of the music is amazing. Outstanding. Some of Marty's best work.

But I've been hearing the same four or five pieces used on several missions. There's a "boss fight" theme that I've heard at least three times.

* Balance PvP. Create new content for PvP. Focus the bulk of your attention on PvP. This is where the game's long-term viability lies.
* Open the Raid early before players get bored with the launch content.
* Explore mode is fun, but it could definitely benefit from some sort of connection to the main story. Add some weight to the side missions players perform in Explore. Why does FWC want me to analyze this doo-dad, and why does Dead Orbit want me to scan this area? It could be as simple as adding more NPC dialogue from the faction leaders in the Tower.
* Create some N7 / Spartan Ops style side missions on the Crucible maps. That would be nice. It would expand the scope of the game world and tie those areas into the story quite nicely.

Hey, I never disagreed with you.

And to be absolutely clear to everybody, I expected a loot grind after playing the beta, but I didn't anticipate that the content would be this barren or repetitive.

You are correct. I expected at least some NEW areas and missions for level 20+, but besides the raid it looks like there is nothing so far. It's all repeats. Mega super lame, but I saw it coming.

Different games and genres use music differently. Destiny may have more repetition than say, Halo. But compared to a classic JRPG, it has oodles of variety. In my opinion, if the music is unique and engaging, it can be an exciting cue and immediate ambience-setter. For example, I've heard the FFVII battle and boss music hundreds of times in my playthroughs starting fifteen years ago and I'm still humming them today. :)

Similar experience for me. I fired it up a couple hours ago, no real desire to continue playing this evening. The most amusing thing for me was how some of Dinklage's lines are still absurdly bad for a professional voice actor, even with all the post processing.

The game does a really really poor job of drawing you in with story early on too. Even the NPC's in the tower are as bland as white bread and offer nothing interesting to say.

I was also amazed at how much of the first couple of hours I had already seen, from the cutscenes to the levels to the enemies, I didn't realize that all the Destiny promo material was literally going to be the first couple hours of the game.

The game does a really really poor job of drawing you in with story early on too. Even the NPC's in the tower are as bland as white bread and offer nothing interesting to say.

"Lifeless" is a very good word to describe the Destiny Universe. Nothing really felt alive.

The most amusing thing for me was how some of Dinklage's lines are still absurdly bad for a professional voice actor, even with all the post processing.

I can't really blame Bungie for this, but it really amazed me too. I guess he hasn't done much voice acting compared to his regular acting? Either way, his delivery was abysmal more often than not. It's too bad because he is filling the companion role, I was hoping to get a little attached to him, but I can't if I am cringing while he repeats "the Darkness is coming" in that melodramatic voice...

I finished the story missions tonight and I have thoughts on the ending that I'd like to share, but I'm not sure if spoilers are allowed yet, so I'll hold off for a while. Without getting specific, it was abrupt and anti-climactic. Better than Mass Effect 3, but just as bad as Halo 2. The Mars missions did not change my impression of the game at all.

I still have to play most of the Strikes, and I'll probably keep playing Crucible for the foreseeable future, but I have little incentive to replay the story missions now that I've run through them. They're too damn repetitive.

Well, okay... there is one mission that I'd like to replay... and I think you all know which one I'm talking about... (Hint: It's on the Moon.)