I played this game for hours and hours and HOURS back when it was brand new. Mostly in multiplayer. I played it with longtime L4D veterans, I played it with those unaware of Turtle Rock's work, I played with randos. As the monster, against the monster, I squeezed so much out of this humungous, intriguing game.

I get it. I see the vision, and I completely understand where Turtle Rock was coming from. Just like Left 4 Dead, they wanted "CO-OP" to be the largest, most important element. Just like in said legendary zombie-killing duology, if even a single person on your team is not being a team player, your chance of winning is basically zero.

And that's great, I think that's a very cool and important aspect to these games. I also understand that the main aspect to this game's 'enjoyment' factor is "The thrill of the hunt." The game didn't want you to feel like some crazed super-soldier armed to the teeth killing hordes of enemies. They wanted you to feel like an actual hunter. Tracking the big game's path, arming and supplying yourself along the way in order to be able to stand up against it. But with that comes the caveat of the fact that most of the time . . . you're just running forward.

The 1-man team "monster" side is interesting too, although I'll admit I was a complete schlub in this regard, I always panicked and messed up in nearly every match due to anxiety, as the only person I can blame for my loss is myself.

While I can respect this game for what it was going for, I can understand why a lot of people didn't dig it. I don't want to say it was 'too sophisticated' or whatever, I just think certain expectations simply couldn't be met, considering how much they amped up "FROM THE CREATORS OF LEFT 4 DEAD" and barebones content, while towing huge prices for DLC. I myself got bored with the game often and think a lot of its visual designs are either boring or obnoxious, the fact that your gun usually takes up like 1/3 of the screen is just ridiculous.

An early attempt at the asymmetrical multiplayer game. Which now is everywhere thanks for Dead By Daylight. The games unique aspect was one group tries to kill the monster while it's weak but the monster can get stronger the longer it lives. Which most asymmetric games now just has one group that fights at a time rather than both being able to. One big problem was that it would be boring as hell just chasing the monster as the human players. Also this game released with some ridiculous microtransactions. Truth be told compared to what we have now they aren't that bad but that's just a sign things have gotten worse with microtransactions.