Bugs aside, how the game actually is? Especially story-wise?
A waste of potential, there is interesting stuff, hacking is pretty useful and powerful once you spec for it as it is very fun to just tell a bunch of enemies to die , some guns are really fun to use like the smart shotgun and the tech weapons that penetrate walls, some cyberware are fun to use, especially the ones with improved jumping, the missions have different approaches for you to complete them. The story is decent and I had fun with it. The city is really beautiful in high resolution and it is really impressive to walk around seeing the sights.
However, for each thing the game does good, it also half asses it hard. Hacking is mostly restricted to Watch Dogs legion type of hacking with very little complexity, most shit that requires you to jack in only reward you with money so if you expected nice Matrix gameplay, that only happens on scripted missions. The combat balance is completely broken with you trivializing the opposition by level 10, so all those cool guns, you will grow tired very quickly of use them. The itemization is garbage with legendary weapons becoming obsolete absurdly quickly unless you spend all your money upgrading them when it is easier to just grab a gun with more stats, it is the shiet MMO itemization we all hate. You have cyberware that allow you to jump around and Parkour alot but there are vey few missions that actually invest alot on verticality, it is fun to jump around and climb stuff but it was yet another lie from CDPR that they were investing on more verticality. The missions have different approaches but most side missions are incredibly short (they have the best level design by far but are over way too quick) and most main missions are full of popamole and railroaded moments that realy annoy me.
The main story is decent but the story wasnt compatible with an open world game, you start as a mercenary and I really liked the story up that point, but after a certain point, you lose agency and it is all lets Keanu Reeves destroy the corpos and be an anarchist terrorist for ideals or shite, the agency you have is to do what he says or not, it is all framed by him and I felt, so far, that I'm a secondary character on Keanu Reeves show. I mean, it isnt that Johnny Silverhand isnt well written, he is an interesting character (him being well written is the only reason I tolerate this bs) but how is "you are going to die on a few weeks if you dont help him" compatible with walking around doing merc work? I also feel zero emphaty towards my character, his little faggit voice when he is fighting with Silverhand makes me wish I were playing him instead of V.
