Where to begin?

I'll start with the negatives.

The game is incomplete from its original vision, and it shows in some parts. We don't know the full extent of what was cut, aside from Battle Gear and Mission 51.
The post-launch Grade 6 and up weapons and equipment require you to play online to develop, take several days to develop, and are prohibitively expensive to use if you don't play online.
Some of the resources you steal in singleplayer from the enemy are stored online and can be stolen from your FOB. This can be a hastle when you need every Precious Metal you can grab to develop items, and only want to play offline.
The long cutscenes from previous titles are gone. In my eyes, this was a negative.
The story doesn't have a satisfying conclusion. You're left with a major cliffhanger at the end.
The game can get really grindy. GMP gets hard to come by once you've done a lot of sideops and missions. You may need some plants that only spawn in a certain region, and are hard to find.
The resource cost to use some weapons or items can be really high. I liked the tranq gun with integral suppressor, but I constantly had to go back to the Africa map to get the plant to use it.
Not all of the characters are as over the top as you'd be expecting. I'm mainly talking about Revolver Ocelot, whom longtime fans of the series knew for his eccentric personality.


The positives?
The freedom of infiltration. No longer are you punished heavily for going lethal. There's several ways to complete a mission.
The separate missions. This was introduced in Peace Walker, though I never played that title extensively. Instead of having to play the whole game over again to play your favorite sequence, you can just play your favorite mission.
The graphics. This game can be played on relatively low end machines for how nice it looks. On max settings, the game looks stunning.
Variety of equipment. There's a gun or other item to everyone's fancy.
Buddies. They range from walking weapons platform that destroys choppers to a highly trained dog (it's not a wolf) who sniffs out mines and enemy locations.
Field drops. Accidentally brought the wrong weapon? Mission conditions change and now you need a rocket launcher? You're no longer SOL when this happens. They also act as a way to knock out an enemy.
Vehicles. Need to get across Afghanistan, and D-Horse isn't fast enough? Grab a jeep. Don't need the speed, but the firepower? Grab an APC. Waves of well armed enemies coming after you? Call in a tank.
Soundtrack. Some of the most recognizable tracks from the 80s are in here. Take out an armored Soviet divison while playing Kids in America, or Take On Me.
Accessability to new fans. Most of the events the events that happened before chronologically are explained in game. Though, this is Big Boss' story. If you want to see Solid Snake's story, you don't see much here.


Overall, the game has its glaring flaws, but more than enough positives that outweigh those flaws. I was disappointed at how it ended and at the absurd difficulty of FOB content, but I didn't regret that I played it. If this game were complete, I have no doubts that this would have been the frontrunner for GOTY.