It is obvious that a TON of work went into this game. Graphics is great, there is some etmosphere (wouldn't call it immersive though), and my favourite is the radio in the car :)
The problem is that it is the radio in the car which I recall my favourite feature of the game after a good number of hours. Login and gameplay is seriously flawed: after 5 YEARS, I am still welcome with login issues on all occassions (which I don't need anyhow, as I don't give squat about the multiplayer (i just want the campaign), but I need to be connected to the servers regardless. Fine, whatever. Ubisoft store is up, running, I can browse my games, Wildland is wondering in the universe somehwere, lookign for something, for minutes, stuck at the login screen - WTF??)). Settings are also reset when the game seems fit, and it is so much fun to scan through again what presets may or may not have been altered accoring to its infite wisdom...
Gameplay. I seriously don't understand how this game passed the testing phase. How did anyone thought it is a good idea not allowing saving in the first place? But let's that for the moment: respawning you on the other side of the bloody map is clearly an undesirable desing element, isn't it? With 2 other safe houses closer the spot where you died. Not a figure of speach, literally on the other side of the map (though at least I disovered a new area without wondering there). Oh, and in most cases, the world is re-generated, so you can't pick up where you left, you may or may not be in the same area even, and may or may not be in the same part of the day (entirely possible it will take you back into the night, or throw into he day, seemingly as decided by a white blind mouse)
Gunfights. Apparently a submachine gun is as accurate as a sniper rifle, over long distances. Team is sometimes as stupid as ****, blocking my movement (once into a corner I couldn't move from, so I had to wait till I was killed), stepping into in my line of fire, or in front of a bad guy, watching him to slowly walking up to him, shooting him and me first, then maybe shoot back (not always, it depends). Great. Skill points can spent in a sequence. Why?! You clean up an outpost, and it respawns soon. You can't destroy it, you can't sabotage it, and you can't turn it, so every freaking time, you clean them, over and over again. (the first couple of times it is fun even, but then it is more like a chore). Maybe after some pre-defined element is achieved, and the algorythm decided you earned enough....."something" (I couldn't find out what, if it even exists), then it changes, but after spending 3 long evenings with this, after another stupid respawn, I just deleted the game, so I never found out.
Driving....oh my god, driving. I know this is not a drive simulator, but that doesn't necessarily mean all vehicles must behave like sh*t. Bike, car, chopter, doesn't matter, each is the unbelievably bad, and weirdly enough, somehow the same way. Again, how did this past testing??? I just can't imagine that lots and lots of players said to the idiotic vehicle control " yeey, perfect, this is what I want in an action shooter, superb!..." (example: a vehicle can either accelerate, or decelerate, but it can't hold a certain speed. Or when slowing down too much, it goes to reverse, and swings around the view whether you want it or not, whether you crawl back at 1 mph or 50)
LIke i've said. An absolute sh*tload of work went into this game, and my hats off to many of the devs, some aspects of the game are truly remarkable. But, at least for me, the negatives are not compensated by the positives, so I have uninstalled the game after about 10 hours or so. The internet is full of ravaging reviews, so I must be a minority, but in my opinion, this game is seriously flawed, and thus is a botched effort. Pity, because it could have been really good.
