So far, it's OK – fun with sides of frustration, I'd say. Finding tucked away doors that can be interacted with to raid backrooms boasting goodies and other freeroam tangents have been very cool. The world feels forever changed.
Reasons or motivations vary on par with story but it's directional wave-combat on set stages with little to no variation. Bang. Group 1 alert. Loot. Repeat. Headshots should be OHKO, I don't care the title; no idea why the head-to-toe sponginess in 2 when there's a hitbox as such begging to be bull's-eyed. The rain falls as thick as glue and renders visibility poor at even a drizzle, especially come nightfall – and not stormily but in more a baby-stepping, whiteout condition; if it's my television, then that's on me but I don't believe so. In-scope view is cheaply simplistic and dated; they put little effort into that, it looks. Worse, hitreg is disappointingly wonky, particularly when foes rush you in CQC (terrible and nigh a death sentence) or you're firing fast at range.
e/ The main-story mission settings are proving very cool, despite similar combat patterns.
e/ Gear and weapons modding as well as specialised marksman ammo have rendered headshot DMG more 'deterministic' toward endgame – much better experience, overall.
Repositioning out-of-cover can feel similarly a death sentence as movement is 'sticky' owing to the cover-grab mechanics of every ledge or object and melee is bloody pointless (clumsily mashing one's buttstock forward as with a disability) while of TD options, there are none. This might not irk some as Division is not Ghost Recon or Sniper Elite (understood) but for me, it'd be nice to have as much in my toolbox when needed. I acquired suppression yesterday and it's but a stat augmentation with no in-field change à la stealth despite descriptions to the contrary bespeaking 'sound'.
Character customisation is awesome (I'm doing a first responder-thing and looking fly AF) and the weapon skins look honestly great. Indoor details of world are fantastic from lighting effects to hotel-strewn luggage. Cool scoring, also, with the 1980s meeting 1990s electronica and Wolfenstein-industrial bits. Glitchy NPCs with floor-level, floating heads and gravity-wild pipes as well as shop objects like tills looping in 360s are per-session observations but not immersion-breaking as very infrequent and honestly a bit funny. The world looks sharp, all in all, and is fun to lose yourself in.
Not worth the some 100€ I paid is my view ATM but it's good; no regrets. Still heaps of aspects to discover and experience so I might revisit an opinion or two here. There's an in-game urgency or bustle as an agent that gives it a unique atmosphere. Gameplay, lastly, sounds four-stars in my Sennheisers; whatever last-minute audio update Ubi pushed was well-called. Very nice.
Onwards and upwards. *bang, bang
