Recent reviews by Aximander

pretty fun zombie survival game

While not finished yet this is a great start. Building is fun. Progression makes you feel more powerful. The world is HUGE. With multiplayer it is better still.
I can't wait for the next update and see what they add. The potential is great as the game is fun as it is.

Good tactical shooter. It's nice that you can actually use concealment. More so than is usual in this type of game.

Update 2021.
Bugs are still there but the game play has improved a lot. I can actually enjoy it now. Modded servers are nice. Servers crashes aren't too unusual. I lost 4 helicopters in 3 days. That was brutal. Much better with friends. Can be easy to find them online. YMMV.
I think it can be great. If they get the crashes and network issues fixed it could be great.

New player as of the Feb 2020 free weekend.
The game is fairly brutal for new players. It does little to show you how the mechanics work. You will die a lot.
Despite this, I really enjoyed exploration of the DayZ worlds. I knew my frequent deaths were due to lack of experience in the game and understanding it's mechanics. Well, that and a few idiots who like to camp the spawns 🙂
I watched a few videos of the basics... Making fire, finding food and water. How to load a gun, use the inventory, craft items, etc.
I learned to get inland ASAP, where loot is much better. Because food and water is scarce. Well it IS better, but it is still lacking
I died multiple times from lack of food/water. Or even more frustratingly...I spawned in at night... And it is pitch black... I can't see crap and I don't want to run blindly, nor make myself a beacon by using my chem light (which isn't much help outside) so I decide to wait it out.... 1/2 hour later my character is sick and I die shortly after because cures are very rare.
Loot is just too rare. Apartments rarely have anything, nor to many other less accessable places. Stick to houses, garages and once you get to a military base you wonder why bother with cities any longer.
More problematic are the bugs. You will need to leave the server to reset inventory bugs or lack of ability to use or craft items fairly often. I lost a large jacket full of good loot because I took it off before exchanging it for a nicer one because it just disappeared. And of course that was where my main gun ammo was and I needed it badly shortly after since I ran into wolves. I loved that shooting wolves brought in a dozen zombies just not the loss of all the items I needed to fight them off. I died. Sevens hours of play time ruined by a bug that I now know had been around for a long time.
The game has great potential. I'm going to try some modded servers and see how that goes. But as it is now. It does have some serious frustration makers.

Fun game. Lots of little humor in it.
Left for Dead play style.
Plays very well.....still some balancing to do
Leaving friends behind isn't much of a hit, so people do. Certain classes get around easier and faster, so they run off to depart and leave the slower ones to fight their way back.

Didn't play it before so have no lingering anger about it, or bugs from prior saves to detract from my game.

The game is a good exploration game. That includes exploring how the game even works. It tosses you right into the mix and you are likely to find you are dying right away. Sink or swim.
Planets can range from boring to very interesting / different. The animals vary and act reasonably. Although I find few are a threat.
Travel can take some time but it's more realistic. I don't have a teleportation system set up yet.
There are a few bugs and I've crashed once. Graphic popups/glitches occasionally. Once my ship would shoot itself, but reloading the game fixed it. Enemies can sometimes jump through the ground. Nothing absolutely horrible.

My biggest complaint is the console based controls. I'm not a console guy. Push and hold to do things instead of a mouse click, and lack of mouse wheel support is annoying. Flying is just weird feeling. Please add a more PC feel to the controls.
Overall I'm enjoying the game and am hopeful for the future of it.

Updated.... uninstalled
Played it a lot, but have just uninstalled it. The frustration level is very high. Too high. I'm not a bad FPS player, and I am not very good at this game. Between the bad net code and cheaters it just isn't fun to play. Buggy climbing, jumping and getting stuck on little things. All plants disappear at range so you can't hide from snipers.
The North American area players are not allowed to choose our maps so you get stuck with sandhock map, which is my least favorite map, all the time.
I probably get many more cheaters because I play late night US time and there are a ton of hackers on then. Wall hacks and recoil scripts are common. (E.g. A guy couldn't hit me with a Kar98 w/ a scope, at a distance, so pulled out his M4 with red dot and killed me with auto fire).
I held out hope they would improve things but they really haven't. They have made a huge amount of money on this game and just put more cosmetic crap in to make more.
Sad, because this was the serious Battle Royal Game. I'm not alone in thinking this. Another I played with tonight also said he was uninstalling it.

The game is fun, with potential for awesomeness, but needs work badly.
Hit boxes are wonky.
Hackers are rampant. Auto firing sniper rifles and Assault weapons with no recoil cheats are way too common. Some kind of wall hacks as well. Most often from number or Chinese looking names. I really can't fathom how cheating is fun. Although I do enjoy killing them when I get the chance. They can't shoot everyone at once. But it is mostly frustrating.
Severs issues are fairly common. They aren't springing for the good hardware or the game is badly optimized. Can't log in

The lobby often bugs out. Can't see friends to join them. You or your friend's name or friendly market don't show up. Played as unknown quite a few times, even the whole squad is"unknown"
Lobby should save you game preferences, but doesn't.

Let's hope they fix it, but for now it can be fun but has a bunch of frustration in it.

District 9 meets Falling Skies.
Good little intro. I'd go see a movie like this.