Recent reviews by Excuse Me?

Overall a fun game, and a decent entry into the Total War WH series.

However it is also a broken and buggy mess. CA does not seem to care about anything, or releasing things with polish. Only releasing them, and fixing things as they go along.

While also selling DLC that is ever increasing in price, with seemingly less content. The same song and dance CA has done for decades.

Been playing since Shogun 1 and it has only gone downhill, with occasional ups.

Excel: The Video Game
Very nice

First of all, don't believe the hype. I never did, and I thought the game was satisfying.
The only other CDPR game I've ever played longer than 10 min was The Witcher 1: EE.

That being said I don't know whether it lives up to TW3, so I'm going into this with fresh eyes and low expectations.

I built a PC last year specifically so it could play this with RTX on, so I can't speak to the experience on PCs without newer cards or CPUs, but the game ran beautifully for me. I ran into a few bugs, mostly graphical and T-posing, with more than a few showing your character bald if they had a hat on in certain cutscenes or the mirror, but nothing particularly rage-inducing.

I did have to revert to previous saves a couple times in time playing the game after an NPC failed to spawn, or quest not update.

The combat is passable, with the shooting mechanics somewhere between Fallout and Destiny 1. Melee is less fleshed out, but can be fun with the right build.

Speaking of builds it's pretty easy to become overpowered with the right combination of perks, weapons, and quickhacks (this universe's equivalent of magic). Half-way in I put the game on hard because combat became too easy.

Crafting is underwhelming, and locked behind stats. Currently the game has an issue with save files bloating with each new item you craft, and becoming permanently ruined if they reach 8mb. So I'd hold off on using crafting to make money for now.

Stealth leaves much to be desired, especially the perks it gets such as aerial takedowns and knife throwing being pretty much useless.

Where the game really shines is the atmosphere it creates, and the world-building, as well as the story. Having never played TW3 or the Cyberpunk TTRPG I didn't know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised.

Overall I'd say it's an excellent game, with outstanding music selection on the various radio stations, and the score. The band Refused stand-in for the band Samurai in-game, which appealed to me as a fan. Keanu Reeves' performance can be bland at times, but he does have his moments, and I think it's cool as heck he's in the game. Cyberpunk is an often overlooked setting in recent times, mostly giving way to sword and sorcery / post-apocalyptic / contemporary ones, so CP2077 is a breath of fresh air. The only thing that really bothers me about the game is how flat the open-world is, with no factions or gangs/guilds to join, and not much to do besides outside of the main story aside from sidequests, and gigs / jobs to kill or rob people.

Hopefully with time CDPR can flesh out the world more.

It may not be the game of the year, and definitely not the game of forever but with a solid rig, it can be an enjoyable experience.

The good:
Graphics
Story
Characters
Music
Atmosphere
Keanu

The bad:
Bugs (for me mostly graphical, but a couple that prevented game progression)
Lack of meaningful things to do in the open-world
Gunplay
Lack of customization past the character creator (little to no modification for weapons, or vehicles)
Crime / police system

The perfect game for armchair historians and grand strategy nuts. Unfortunately after all the years of development, playing without a significant number of the DLCs won't get you the full experience since many features are behind a paywall, even with some of the older ones being incorporated into the base game.

To potential buyers, give a starter bundle a try, before pulling the trigger and buying the rest of them.

Hearts of Iron 4 is a game with a steep learning curve, even steeper than other Clausewitz engine games. Like the other strategy games Paradox plaza develops, once you do learn the ropes, the game becomes very very satisfying.

The combat is vibrant, though the UI can be a bit unruly at times.
The events can be....lacking, and many are just flavor ones with no real bearing on the game such as Amelia Earheart.

Overall it's a very fun game for strategy game fans, and history buffs (though be forewarned don't expect the game to stick to history too closely, even with the historical setting checked.)

However I would be hesitant to recommend it to my friends. Not sure how it is on PC, but on Mac OS X the game is very unstable. The patch fixed a few things, and introduced a whole slew of bugs for those running on Mac.

I have lost more than a few Ironman saves to bugs that FUBAR the save file, game crashes instantly when loading up an old save (cloud and local).

The game is fun, however it is very apparent it was rushed. Even Europa Universalis 4 wasn't this buggy when it came out.

If you want this game, I say hold off on getting it until a few more patches, or the first expansion, when hopefully all the kinks are worked out. Or if the game goes on sale.

Very fun game in the CYOA genre, I highly recommend it for all fans of mecha anime. It does get a bit old though after a few run throughs.