Okay, couldn't resist and gave some hard earned money to Bethesda jews. I've been playing this for a few hours, my overall impression is positive while I have a few criticisms of things that really annoyed me.
First the positives, the game has awesome level design. You can go crazy exploring each nook and crany on this game, there is alot of verticalitty and many rooms have multiple levels arranged on complex way and many times really good stuff is hidden on not so obvious places.
The second positive is that the upgrade tree is more akin to something like Deus Ex Human revolution, it isn't a tacked on upgrade system like on many modern games but it isn't anything close to what System Shock 2 or Deus Ex or even Bloodlines offered. It is a middle of the road system between popamole decline and true incline. There are turrets to hack, there are doors to repair, there are heavy crates to lift, the basic stuff you saw on Human Revolution. It is certainly better than Bioshock 1.
The third positive is that the game isn't as easy as I feared, of course this could change later with the more overpowered powers but so far, phantoms and mimics can beat your ass on hard if you aren't careful. They teleport around including to behind you and phantoms can two shot youwith their projectiles if you are too slow to move. The GLOO gun isn't as effective against bigger Typhoon enemies.
My main criticism is that while the ammo is scarce, this is just an illusion, you can recycle that abundant trash you find around into ammo so there is actually alot of ammo around and you don't need to manage resources so hard like you had to on System Shock. I'm already at the point that I'm feeling confortable spending shotgun ammo on mimics.
My second criticism is that Talos 1 while really well done in terms of verticality, options for traversal and exploration it is a little barebones so far in terms of ambient storytelling. One of the things I loved so much on System Shock 1 was that by the end of the medical bay, you had access to the recent backstory of the recent dead on that place and the horrors they suffered. It was great to create the feeling of a backstory that you could emphatize with, the storytelling on Talos 1 is just "OMG, evil corporation did experiements with smoke aliens, this couldn't end well, wink, wink."
Of course this could improve later as I'm only at the beginning but I miss an strong character, a villian like Shodan or even Andrew Ryan someone to give a face to the place. The Citadel and Rapture were made in the image of beings that thought themselves as gods and that brought a really cool personality to the whole place. I don't know if "generic" is the right word, but I feel detached from what is happening at Talos 1. So far, even Mankind Divided with its akward social commentary was better at ambient storytelling than Prey.
Again, things could improve, we will see.
The final criticism is that the game isn't scary and the atmosphere is kinda meh, there was something unsettling and creepy with the enemies on System Shock 2 and something like Dead Space. Both the Citadel Station and the ship on System Shock 2 felt claustrophobic and really cold. The feeling of creepiness with the cold metal hallways and body horror, specially on System Shock 2 isn't here. There is no body horror like on System Shock 2, no psychological horror like on Silent Hill. The Typhoon are threatening as enemies but they are just faceless black ooze smoke monsters, there isn't much of a personality to them. The huge open arenas with the colourful ambient don't make for good horror game material.
I will play and invest 100% on the alien powers to see how the game reacts to this and meet mister Nightmare.
