Recent reviews by Lord DiCampo

I broke the loop 2 times. Single player is great. Interesting story, lovely environments, character design, graphics, etc. Stealth is great, though npc-s could be smarter in open combat.
Multiplayer is unplayable due to massive lag.
Guns could be better. Since I mostly play stealth I beat the game twice with silenced limp 10. It's OP. Silent tribunal is very cool but even with mods it's far worse than unmodded limp 10 which has much higher range which feels like it's a sniper, it's extremely accurate, has double ammo, and shoots auto. Tribunal is useless in comparison.
Other guns are loud so I didn't use them much because I didn't want to get swamped in big firefights, but I believe there are mods to make nearly every weapon an efficient killing machine for close combat, except tribunal I guess.

A very boring game, do not recommend even under a discount. The only reason I tried it out was because I was curious to see how the story gets to New Dawn.
Pros:
NPC-s aren't ugly like in the new dawn
More outfits than new dawn, but not enough
Enemies are not bullet sponges
Weapon models are nice
Some weapon modifications

Cons:
Map is extremely tedious to traverse. It's hill upon hill, river upon river, your running speed is slow and vehicles are slow. It's teeming with cultists who you have to take out otherwise they keep chasing you with a car. And when you do take them out, another one comes straight at you.
Story is beating a dead christian apocalypse horse and getting bible verses showed down your throat by a bunch of psychopathic cultist killers.
At certain points you get kidnapped, multiple times in every three regions of the game. It's a glorified get-kidnapped-simulator. It can't be avoided, and it interrupts whatever you've been doing at the time.
Frequent FPS drops and freezes for the game to load at certain points, even though it's installed on m2 SSD.
Don't like much anything about the game, even though I've beaten it

Maybe try it only under a heavy discount
Though better than Far Cry 5 in terms of gameplay and exploring the map it has it's own defects.
Pros:
Somewhat fun to play
somewhat fun combat and some quests
rudimentary crafting system
rudimentary perk system
unlike FC5, the map is not tedious to traverse
nice landscapes

Cons:
Ugly main character (played a female)
Ugly NPC-s, most generic NPC-s and main NPC-s are ugly
Linear treasure hunts, devs did their best to force you to complete them exactly the way they imagined
Stupid main antagonists, they posture and babble around you unarmed and exposed in a situation where you could just reach out and shoot them, if it wasn't scripted otherwise
Very few clothing options, and they are grindy to get
Unballanced weapons, some enemies are bullet sponges even if you shoot them with elite weapons

These are my main problems with the game that I can think of, there are other things that other players mentioned. A disappointment from a major developer, not that it's surprising in recent years

It's out of early access but still very unfinished. It has potential, but at this point it has a lot of issues like stiff movement, collision problems, items without textures, boring dungeons. There are other problems other people mentioned, but this is what bothers me in these 2 hours of play. I will keep track of updates and change my review if it gets better over time

Great game. First improvement you notice in comparison to older stalker games is that all animations are much smoother. Movement doesn't feel so clunky any more.
Generic stashes are removed and replaced by smaller amount of high value stashes.
Quests are more interesting with more scripted events.
Generic quests like return X item and take and hold X position are removed.
Graphics and game design are significantly improved.
Less playable areas, but they are more detailed.
The game is overall shorter than the preceding games. The story is good, but maybe not as interesting as the first game.

By now most people already know about stalker. It's quite a good game, despite bugs and imperfections.
Besides the atmosphere, overall theme and gameplay which make stalker what it is, what I like the most is difficulty settings.
I beat the game at least 2 times on master difficulty, and it wasn't too hard, it seems just appropriate. Human enemies and mutants have the same health, the only difference is they deal a lot more damage. One or two good hits will kill you. Anomalies are more dangerous because they do massive damage as well. Bleeding is much stronger.
When you get better equipment everything balances out, making it an ultimate stalker experience.

Except bugs and gliches, what bothers me the most is poor AI. If it was better the game would be much more difficult on master level.

Quite a good game, even without the lewd elements. It is also not overpriced like most games of this type. However, roguelike mechanics demands it to restart the game in order to progress which can make it get boring easily. 7/10

Recommended, but only on heavy discount. That's how I got it.
It's not a bad game but it has flaws which should not be present in a game made by an AAA company.
The biggest problem is long loading time. Switching between areas and entering the game can take 3-5 minutes. Loading a quicksave takes between 30sec to a min. Main and side objectives often make you travel between the areas and loading times damage the experience of the game. In addition, if you play stealth you have to reload often, so long quickloading makes it unnecessarily tedious.
The game crashes sometimes and there are minor glitches. This isn't a big deal though.
The game could have been longer, but considering the main problem I'm glad it's over. I don't want to try out the new game + because of it.
Pros of the game are the story and side missions. You can deal with most of the bosses by persuasion, and it only takes 2 praxis points to unlock it. Game rewards hacking and non-lethal stealth play. If you play that way you can quickly unlock most of the augs you need for effective stealth. Weapon upgrades are always a +.

3/10 could be worse
the game tries to be a sandbox RPG and an FPS, it gets neither job done. Even if you get this game for free, I'm not sure it's worth playing.

cons:
-stiff controls
-poor AI, especially for human NPC-s. They take cover with their head sticking out, they don't shoot if you come from an unintended direction, even though they are engaged in combat with you. Just an example, and it happens often. Zombies just run straight towards you and you can only awkwardly try to jump back before they slam you with massive damage. It can be evaded or you can kick them back but it feels very stiff and tedious.
-boring, awkward combat. Both melee and firearms. Again, awkward stiff controls + poor ai
-poor level design, a LOT of artificial barriers. They make you circle around, you constantly feel irritated and trapped. Awkward movement and controls combined with the lack of climbing make it even worse
-boring MMO-like sidequests. There's a lot of them. They serve only to grind up XP and they are a chore

pros:
-crafting and upgrading

Not a bad game. A bit short. The story started well but the ending is stupid. Gameplay is done very well. Depending on your skills and gear you can use a variety of tactics. Considering that the game is quite small, there are enough skill and equipment choices and customization possibilities to fit your play style. Almost all the gear and skills can be modified with gems you earn during the game. You can freely redistribute them and experiment with them. Low-med replay value