Well - about 14 hours in, I can say the following:
- the AI is completely braindead in combat, which becomes apparent especially in firefights, I know that expecting something like FEAR in 2020 is pointless, but its still kinda jarring to see that once shooting starts the enemies will mostly just move to the nearest cover and stay there (I had a grenade thrown at me once, enemy runners spam hacks like Overheat) for the duration of the fight, no one tries to flank or anything like that (melee enemies rush you instead of camping)
- I find melee somewhat more bearable since the bad AI isnt so apparent, on the other hand - outside of specific circumstances (some scripted fights, individual enemies in small spaces) - getting into close combat is not a good idea since most of the enemies obviously have guns
- bullet sponginess might be helped once I stack enough of those +10% damage on headshot perks, but honestly the game would be better if the shooting worked like it does in the flashback of Johnny´s assault on Arrasaka tower, where headshots explode heads and 2-3 hits in the body are enough to kill any mooks, all the attempts at introducing RPG mechanics into shooting/guns are IMO detrimental (ie perks just for non-combat stuff, while the guns should all be relatively high damage with some possibilities for customisations like suppressors, scopes etc)
- Stealth is the solution to the above problems as far as I am concerned, while the implementation isn’t perfect and imo depends a bit too much on hacking for creating distractions (can you even throw stuff to distract people?) and too little on finding alternative paths, it is competently done and is a viable solution to most situations (outside of the obviously combat oriented side missions) you find yourself in (tech capability is important for stealth, since it is used for lockpicking) and frankly anything that keeps me out of the horribad combat is welcome
- Hacking itself is OKish, certainly could have used more depth (nu-Deus Ex had more complex hacking than this)
- Driving is acceptable (though obviously AI of other cars aint that good), the city itself is done pretty well, the shitty parts of the city (like where you have your apartment) as well as the more classy places have a proper feel to them
- Writing, interactive scripted scenes (like meeting with Stout, negotiation with Royce etc) and conversations in general are where the game really shines, there are lots of interesting and well written characters, even the ones who only show up for some minor sub-quest are usually done pretty well, the major characters are really good and even Johnny is not as annoying as I thought he will be, overall the game brings really good story fag experience
- I didn’t encounter any bugs that would be a big deal (in fact the shitty AI is IMO 100% bigger problem for the game), the only major technical problem is that the game sometimes starts slowing down (still playable, but doesn’t feel right), which is fixed be reloading. I have a pretty good rig so I run the game with all the settings maxed out and it looks pretty good while running smoothly, I guess the slowdown thing has to do with optimisation and will be fixed eventually
So yeah, if you want a good shooter/combat game there is no reason to get this now and possibly ever since I am not quite sure the CDPR will care (provided they would even know how) to make the AI any better (and mind you it would have to get a lot better to reach at least not-obviously-retarded levels). If you are a story fag who also likes stealth gameplay, then the game is worth getting even in its current state (provided you have decent hardware to run it of course).
