Marathon

I give up holding out hope for this game... Bungie, what are we even doing anymore guys? I had such high hopes for this game out of the gate, and for the first couple weeks it was absolutely beautiful and felt fresh in a game filled world off AAA hyper realistic BS. But as expected the cash grab cracks started to poke through. The story was so cryptically woven into the game that only data miners and the pale unemployed could take the time to put things together (and they ripped that out of the game in the first 2 weeks). Jumping into the deep end of the pool with an extraction shooter was, to say the least, a choice. A choice that made the grind feel pointless, made the game feel breakable if you had the time to memorize the maps and key points. This, however, is also what made it game fall so far out of the spectrum of casual it only appealed to those who's downtime is spent stuck in the loot goblin loop. How they can find the time to do everything in the game in a week that their only viable entertainment comes from camping and trolling lower level players trying to complete the same missions that are either stupid broken or stupid difficult without a full squad to fall back on is to say the least infuriating. Which brings me to the next reason I give up... It's been almost 5 if not 5 months... 5 MONTHS, as all of the contracts are exactly the same. So they are easily tracked and mapped by rats and trolls that you'll get mowed down the second you trigger a mission objective. "Oh but Cryo archive!" What about it? What about a massive, hardcore only, time sensitive puzzle, with little to no guidance is "fun" when it's just as unrewarding as every other map is now. I wanted the game to succeed, I was hoping every month would come with some new mind blowing update to expand on the story. By now you would think the game would evolve into the genre-bending game we were promised... This is not the case, crazy rough launch due to the destiny crybabies who can't let go of their 10yr old dying franchise. Egregiously confusing menu and wall of text style explanations. Unstable server to the point you can barely manage 4-5 runs without tacking on a good hour+ just sitting at the connection screen. I could complain about the PC players being forced into crossplay as console have a brutally unfair aim assist that they abuse. I could complain about how the risk-reward feel of the game is a fleeting high at best. I could complain that 90% of the character skins feel like phoned in cash grabs that would only appeal to a very specific color blind audience. I could complain that if bungie doesn't do something drastic this will be an offline game that will likely never see the light of day again.... And that's what I'm doing, with the player count nose diving so hard in 5 months this will be a $60 deluxe brick that sits as a reminder of something that could have been great. My advice, stay away from this game until they can pick at direction. Until they can give us more than a game that can be summarized in a 45 minute youtube lore video. The gamers have spoken, and with the dying short lived hype of the extraction shooters this is just a beautiful game with rotting guts.