best surprise muscle daddy reveal in gaming history, five stars

seriously, though: great visuals and world-building, fun combat, but very hard to escape the sense that it's not doing nearly as much with its premise as it should be. The much-hyped Ashtray Maze sequence, for instance, looks extremely cool, but doesn't actually feel that different from the many, many, many combat encounters that precede and follow it. and WTF is with that ending? I get that Remedy wanted to leave some plot threads open for the Foundation DLC and possible sequels, but it's so abrupt and perfunctory that it feels like they ran out of time to write and animate an ending cutscene, let alone create a proper final boss.

imo, should have been more of an action-adventure game and less of a third-person shooter; the premise could have allowed for some really interesting and varied puzzles and platforming, though perhaps that genre wouldn't have played to Remedy's strengths as a developer. oh well, will play the DLCs a bit later and see if they change my opinion much