izigame.me

TL;DR: Buy it on sale, not for a lack of playable content but because the content that exists suffers from some critical design flaws that disrespect the player's time and TONS of bugs that disrepect the player's skill. If you get really into this game and start playing on the higher difficulties, expect to feel very bitter, angry and cheated.
I can't hope to list everything I feel about this game without writing an entire essay on it.
So here's a (somewhat) brief list of the good, the bad and the ugly:
The Good (the early-midgame gameplay):
- The core gameplay loop of deck-building and customisation plus strategic, cooperative horde shooting is excellent in concept, and to an extent in execution.
- The writing is campy in an endearing way that causes me to enjoy all the characters individually.
- The gunplay and attachment system are fun and diverse.
- The enemy types feel distinct and enjoyable, as even subtypes tend to have their own strategies involved. This goes double for special infected.
The Bad (some unfulfilling design choices):
- Melee, despite being viable, lacks the attachment system (though this is planned for a later update).
- Special weapons found in Hives also lack this system, meaning that in late-game you have to throw away a gun you spent hours building the right parts on to instead of being able to transfer them.
- Swarm (PVP) is boring and not very fun. You spend more time waiting in queue for matches and waiting in matches for setup to end than actually playing the mode, which itself gets old quick.
The Ugly (oh god, prepare yourself. Bugs and awful design choices galore.):
- Cosmetics are unlocked through spending a resource you get by playing the game... but what you unlock is randomized every few hours/days. In late-game, there is virtually zero guarantee you are even able to unlock cosmetics you want because the shop is filled with single-use consumable upgrades that you can use once per level. I have played for well over 100 hours and am still missing about 30% of the game's cosmetics by no fault of my own.
- Most cosmetics from DLC1 are locked behind a special currency shop. You get the currency from unique 'dungeon' levels called Hives, but getting even 3 of them takes half an hour at minimum (when actively trying to get them) and considerable skill. Nearly every item in the shop is locked behind rarer consumable upgrades that cost about 3 of that currency, meaning there is a mandatory investment required to access the shop. When it refreshes, this consumable comes back, so you generally have to save up about 25 special currency to bother clearing one of those lines. Also, while regular currency scales with difficulty, this does not-- meaning 3 is still 3 whether on the lowest or highest difficulty. Experienced players will end up having to grind on a low difficulty because the highest one is VERY slow even when playing your best.
- Nearly every cosmetic (and the new cards) from DLC2 (and some things from the Halloween update) are locked behind items you need to carry out of a level, which can ONLY be found in Act 5 (the levels locked to that DLC). There is no guarantee you even get one, because those lovely single-use consumables can take up that space as well. You get one at a time, and with several dozen items to unlock, you will be playing the same few levels OVER and OVER if you want them all. Unlike the DLC1 dungeons, these do not appear everywhere (though that may change in a future update). Also, they take up your quick slot in-game, which is a massive detriment when playing solo. Bots are supposed to be capable of carrying them but frequently glitch out and refuse to do so.
- The game is absurdly buggy, with bots being the prime culprits. They constantly warp all over the place, get stuck in the level geometry, start dangerous objectives early, commit suicide and block your shots by pathing in front of your gun when you're standing still. If you play on a high difficulty, expect your bots to make you lose either the optional objectives or the entire match. FREQUENTLY. These are by far the WORST co-op bots I have seen in any game, ever. They are absolutely infuriating and make the game miserable when you get punished by something completely out of your control. This isn't even to mention some equipment in the game (cards) not functioning correctly even after multiple attempts to patch them and new bugs being introduced each patch.
-You cannot choose which bot characters you have, and considering how powerful some of their team buffs are, it leads to frequent restarts at the beginning of high difficulty campaigns. Of course, this can all be avoided if you have 3 friends, because they can just join to choose your characters and leave to have the bot remain that way. Convoluted design for very little reason.
- The game is almost NEVER patched or hotfixed. Currently, Swarm is completely broken (or so I hear, because I gave up on it very quickly) because of a bug that gives the second team to play as the infected all of the first team's upgrades. Also, the most recent updates they made to one of the characters make him utterly useless in Swarm (because the buffs he gets apply to things that do not appear in that gamemode). It's design choices like that which make me wonder what the heck is going on over at Turtle Rock.
- The developers rarely communicate at all with the players and community as a whole. Maybe WB Games (their publisher) or some other external force is forcing them to remain silent and push out new content without making sure their current content is at a reasonable quality standard.
- There's definitely other stuff that isn't working (like unfair random objectives) but I've already spent far too much time typing this up.
I'm planning to write that full essay some time in the near future and send it to Turtle Rock directly through their feedback form. It hurts a lot to have this sort of abusive relationship with the game. I love what it does right but am faced with constant reminders of why it feels neglected by its development team. At this point, I've decided to uninstall and wait for DLC3 or a major bug-fixing patch. I can't keep booting up the game and doing this to myself.