As far as Pokemon games go, Sword is actually a pretty solid one. It has a good regional dex (I don't care about Dexit) and a really neat framework for the region. Having Pokemon be a huge spectator sport is really enjoyable and it makes the gym challenge compelling. Unfortunately, Gamefreak decided that even though 99% of the game is good fun times with the homies, you NEED a world-ending threat to interrupt the climax of the game in an absurdly obnoxious way that demolishes the pace. Until the Elite 4 challenge is interrupted, the game is actually fairly solidly paced. I do recommend holding off on the DLC until the post-game because it also breaks the pace so hard. The DLC also doesn't scale well at all. Isle of Armor is built so that it either works very early game (sometime between gyms 1-3) or after you beat the main game. I haven't done Crown Tundra yet, but I've heard better things about it than IoA and know it is specifically built to be post-game. The biggest downfall of Pokemon Sword is that it's still a Pokemon game so the best it ever hope to achieve is a 3.5/5.