A solid start, but definitely not worth $60 though. Grab it on sale for about $25 and you won't feel cheated. The best part of this game is that the mid tier difficulty setting is actually challenging, so much so I haven't even touched the hardest mode. It's actually challenging enough that you will almost always fail if you play with three randoms, especially if you have crossplay enabled. Bots are horrible. They always end up getting stuck twitching on a bit of level geometry while you get gang-banged. I'm gonna guess the trash-can bots are why solo play is strongly discouraged and penalized.

I read that the devs aren't planning on adding workshop support, and I wish I had known that before I played over the refund time. No matter what garbage DLC/micro-transactions/cosmetics you release, this game will never last like it's predecessor L4D2 if you don't let the community improve your game. And the groundwork here is deserving of that community love, really.

The Cards and Supply Line systems are fantastic ideas. RPG style specialization that also gives progression to work towards outside of finishing the campaign. The library of Cards feels a little bit lacking as of launch, but surely they will add more card variety to the game with updates. I'd like to see legendary style cards: cards that you can only have one of in your deck that also give you an extreme pro and severe con. Something like +%150 Melee damage/speed/efficiency + both weapon slots are Melee, but you cannot equip firearms or offensive items. Something to give your deck a clear focus. Right now I end up with a lot of filler after I've put in my "x"-oriented cards.

I have no idea why they bothered adding in the ability to play as the Ridden if they weren't going to carbon copy versus mode in L4D. What were you thinking? I was quite disappointed when I discovered the versus is some restricted to some terrible small arena in a wave format. Literally played one round and haven't touched Swarm since. You even bothered to give Cards two different stat effects for Campaign and Versus.

It's so strange they bragged about being L4D's successor, copied and refined many game mechanics that made L4D great, then threw out what was perhaps the two most important aspects of L4D's replayability and longevity:
Modding and Campaign Versus. This really isn't a bad game, it's just not worthy of bearing L4D's torch in it's current state. I'd absolutely change my review to positive if even one of these two missing elements is added in the future.

A solid start, but definitely not worth $60 though. Grab it on sale for about $25 and you won't feel cheated. The best part of this game is that the mid tier difficulty setting is actually challenging, so much so I haven't even touched the hardest mode. It's actually challenging enough that you will almost always fail if you play with three randoms, especially if you have crossplay enabled. Bots are horrible. They always end up getting stuck twitching on a bit of level geometry while you get gang-banged. I'm gonna guess the trash-can bots are why solo play is strongly discouraged and penalized. I read that the devs aren't planning on adding workshop support, and I wish I had known that before I played over the refund time. No matter what garbage DLC/micro-transactions/cosmetics you release, this game will never last like it's predecessor L4D2 if you don't let the community improve your game. And the groundwork here is deserving of that community love, really. The Cards and Supply Line systems are fantastic ideas. RPG style specialization that also gives progression to work towards outside of finishing the campaign. The library of Cards feels a little bit lacking as of launch, but surely they will add more card variety to the game with updates. I'd like to see legendary style cards: cards that you can only have one of in your deck that also give you an extreme pro and severe con. Something like +%150 Melee damage/speed/efficiency + both weapon slots are Melee, but you cannot equip firearms or offensive items. Something to give your deck a clear focus. Right now I end up with a lot of filler after I've put in my "x"-oriented cards. I have no idea why they bothered adding in the ability to play as the Ridden if they weren't going to carbon copy versus mode in L4D. What were you thinking? I was quite disappointed when I discovered the versus is some restricted to some terrible small arena in a wave format. Literally played one round and haven't touched Swarm since. You even bothered to give Cards two different stat effects for Campaign and Versus. It's so strange they bragged about being L4D's successor, copied and refined many game mechanics that made L4D great, then threw out what was perhaps the two most important aspects of L4D's replayability and longevity: Modding and Campaign Versus. This really isn't a bad game, it's just not worthy of bearing L4D's torch in it's current state. I'd absolutely change my review to positive if even one of these two missing elements is added in the future.