Finished the game. Played all weekend. Overall I liked it and I'm glad I played it.
Good stuff:
1. Graphics are really darn good. It's not something new per say (game looking good that is), but it has no pop-ins from what I noticed, and far away lands look remarkable good. Usually it's just a blob of very low textures, but the vistas in the game feel like true vistas.
2. Combat and sneaking is serviceable. Step down from Metal Gear 5 though.
3. Setting is interesting with the whole creepy ghost apocalypse.
4. Story at certain parts are interesting & the cinematics are well shot.
5. Online stuff is fun. Building up roads together with other players, and getting "likes" from equipment players used you have placed in the world. If you make an effort placing equipment in good spots it will get used.
6. Ran incredible well, didn't notice any slow downs on my PS4 and it didn't actually feel sluggish like some locked 30 FPS games do.
7. The actual walking simulator aspect to the game. Yeah, you walk a lot but I found it fun, especially those epic journeys over mountains and rivers. At times it felt like a real struggle making it in one piece, both for you and the equipment you are transporting.
Bad stuff:
1. While the combat is okay, it gets easy as hell after a while when you are introduced new and better weapons. Even the non-lethal way have weapons that act like regular assault rifles, the only difference you stun instead of kill. You can take way too much damage before falling over, and the AI - while they can easily surround you they pose no real challenge. They stand in the open and fire at you waiting to get shot in the head. The ghosts are a little bit better I guess, but the only thing they do is hang around in the air until you come too close. Then they go all ballistics on you. It's hard to criticize the monster AI since they don't actually do much. I played on hard by the way.
2. The creepy Americas setting - while I did enjoy it, the scale feels all wrong. In the beginning of the game a character mention it took her 3 years to traverse the Americas, while you yourself can do it in one day. I understand there will be limitations, but it just feels off. Also the scale feels off when it comes to the story. The apocalypse took out a big chunk of the population, but some of the cities still have a hefty amount of civilians (60k) - so why does it feel like you have to do everything & anything when it comes to "make America whole again"? It is just too few actors and factions involved. While the game pose an epic tale, the actual story is incredible small in terms of scale. It's like that Star Wars thing, the galaxy is big, but somehow everything is about Skywalker and his nearest friends. Hope you get what I mean here.
3. Story is absurd. I didn't expect anything else here considering it is Kojima without a leash, but the story is just way too weird and cryptic up to the last 10% of the game. Then everything is explained and stuff suddenly makes sense. Also at this point you might actually start to care for the characters involved, alas it feels way too late for that and it's a real shame. 90% of the game I was not invested at all, except for maybe one or two small mysteries. The game supported itself mainly on gameplay for me, but as I said the last 10% turned it all around. I just don't understand this type of writing, especially for something that takes about 50-60 hours to complete... You would think making your characters and your protagonist interesting would be a top priority, but apparently it is not and saving it for the last 10% for a (I admit, interesting) twist just does not feel worth it.
4. The online stuff while cool, ruins so much of the game. On story mission you get this desolate feeling of treading new ground, seeing vistas no man has seen before etc. But as soon as you are connected to the in-game network, all this online stuff pops up and it makes the game incredible easy and annoying. Easy in that all those brutal cliffs, rivers and stuff like that you have to cross have already been made safe by someone else. Instead of you having to figure something out and maybe waste precious resources to build something you just casually stroll over that bridge some other player have built, no problem. Annoying, because you can place helpful and funny markers and believe me they are everywhere! It's like Dark Souls messaging system on steroids. Also zip-lines will kill the traversal stuff at some point. Just put up two zip-lines 300 meters a part and you can travel on them freely, gravity does not need to apply because this is future tech. You can of course avoid all of the helpful stuff, but then you feel stupid for taking the hard route. Nobody would do that in real life. Maybe a play-through offline would be the better thing but then you also miss out on the good community spirit like building up the road network together.
5. While I found the walking simulator aspect good, the game makes it way too easy for you here too. You get access to vehicles early on, you also get access to walking and carrying enchantment tools too early. Taking a tumble down the side of mountain or getting swept away in a river will soon became a (funny) memory.
6. Last part of the game has 3-4 (can't remember) bosses in a row. What the hell game, spread them out instead? And the main antagonist for 90% of the game is just an edgy annoying idiot that I felt had no connection to me or my character more than he mocked me at times.
So while I liked the game, it has issues and understandable it isn't a game for everyone, but what game is? My main crux with it is that it becomes way too easy too quickly and the story is told in a very bad way.