This is a good game, but as a huge fan of BL2, its really hard for me to enjoy with the bad writing. The gameplay and movement is an overall improvement but i dont personally like the environments nearly as much as BL2, and BL2 had just as much or more variety in the areas compared to this game despite having different planets to explore. The vault hunters are honestly pretty boring in their personality. Moze is basic and boring, and Amara can't stop talking about punching things, which is somewhat standard compared to the other games but its more evident and annoying in this game. Moze is a fun character to play, and is who i played on my first playthrough, this time i chose Amara and honestly i find her somewhat weak and boring compared to the others. Her grasp and orb are finicky, the grasp tends to fail if youre not directly on the enemy, and also has a range limit thats pretty low. The amount of enemies that actually can be grasped is pretty annoying too. The orb gets stuck on everything so its pretty much useless in more cluttered areas. That was my experience with it anyways. I do like the customization of the skill trees and think its a neat concept. I look forward to trying Zane and Fl4k at some point but the story is such a drag to get through that i'm not sure when i'll actually feel like going through it again. The DLCs are better, but not amazing, and the same goes for the writing in them. But sadly youre not going to find Tiny Tinas Attack on Dragon's Keep or Claptastic Voyage levels of an experience. There's also the issues with legendaries, i just don't truthfully love most of them? I feel like for them to be legendary i should definitely be able to tell a notable gimmick or ability with them and for a lot of them they just felt like a slightly stronger regular gun which is boring, it also doesnt help that they hand out legendaries like candy and all other rarities of weapon become pretty useless fast. Anyways, its a good game, a good game thats hard for me to play as such a big Borderlands 2 fan, so if you havent played the other games I think its definitely better to play those first.

I would love to see better writing, more interesting vault hunters, and a better loot system for Borderlands 4, but i think with the end of BL3 directors cut that they can pull off a decent story.

Honest opinion for both new players and veteran Borderlands psychos:

For new players:
• the story is alright, but not as good as Borderlands 2
• the gameplay is very good; modern, smooth and overall great and fluid
• there are tons of fun guns out there
Just pick a gun that you like, shoot bad guy, get XP and loot, repeat. This is Borderlands. High dopamine spikes when you kill a boss and watch him drop 20 guns.

For veteran players:
• story feels bad compared to BL2
• only 4 vault hunters
• the OP levels are gone
• overall I feel like there are more viable builds compared to previous titles
• some characters are just...let's say 'weird'

If you are looking towards looter shooters BL3 is a good option. I suggest getting the game on sale or check out the bundles since they are great value per dollar spent. DLCs are also good, they add content.

Game is good, gunplay is on point. It deserves an award for the cringiest pair of villains in the history of video games.