I was super excited about this game. I pre-ordered it. As I saw the scalding reviews of the game I got more and more hesitant to play but I genuinely liked the game when I did. I tried to lower my expectations and this review for the most part doesn't take them into account. I really didn't get any game breaking bugs when I played day 1 (besides a legendary gun dropping under the map. That was really frustrating).

The world looks and feels great besides lore being basically non-existent. The city of Night City is heavily detailed and lived up to my expectations on pure detail however I don't feel like we get to know the story of Night City for the most part. From the trailers it seemed like we would be able to go and talk to random individuals and get to know more about the city life from them.

All in all, the game feels rushed, heavily rushed. I really hope they pull a Hello Games and keep working on this like HG did NMS until it lives up to everyone's expectations. This game honestly feels and plays like a cyberistic Far Cry game without the towers.

Another point I'd like to jump on as it doesn't fit any of my other points is that I was super excited to wall climb with mantis blades. It showed it in the trailers. It looked dope asf and they didn't add it into the game as it wasn't finished. I don't know what else they promised and didn't deliver on but that in particular royally pissed me off. Imagine scaling one of the huge skyscapers that way. or stalking someone on the ceiling (that was what they showed in the trailer). The game falls flat on their promise of absolute freedom.

The AI is absolute trash. The cars won't go around you if you park in the middle of the street (something GTA 4 did in 2008) and the police will spawn directly in your line of site and are basically unkillable. It is super easy to get away from them though, since they don't even chase you and you can basically run a block and they forget you exist.

The ending felt horrible, though tbh I never completed the final mission. The games gives you a "turn back here if you want to do more" at the beginning of the final mission, and I always try to 100% games when they do that, so that was a big nope from me. The ending mission came out of the blue since I had so many more questions about the city and the people in it. I assumed I was merely 60-70% done when I hit the final mission. While the final mission could provide closure to some of them, I am without a doubt certain it cannot quell all of them. All in all this is just another reason to not preorder games.