The Good
- so much natural dialogue. Adds life to crew
- dialogues with Anna are deep and gives you a deeper connection with her and your future above metro
- a lot of extra optional dialogue and cutscenes that playout regardless if you're there or not making the environment feel alive, especially with life on the train.
- your char is very vulnerable
- you are very weak. It's realistic. You can get tired from sprinting a bit
- you can choose to sit down and sometimes and listen to some lore.
- variety of locations, with different weather and elements - you gain parts by taking mushrooms, but you lose light. Interesting trade-off.
- the mutants are really well done. Some of the sea creatures are really nasty looking.
- Ending wraps things up nicely.
The Bad
- hit detection is shit. Enemy can be peeking behind cover with your reticule right over them. But it won't hit.
- artyom has no voice, despite having monologues during loading screen
- not having dialogue makes him feel like a shell
- if you kill someone with a crossbow from far away, and other enemies see their comrade die, they automatically know where you are despite you being out of sight
- you can be not in line of sight of opponent and they will still see you sometimes
- enemies can be extremely difficult to spot sometimes especially if they have camo because there is no indicator or outline of their char model
- tall grass and bushes do nothing in this game. Enemies will still see you if they've already spotted you.
- the accent is very heavy, making it hard to understand if you aren't familiar with Russian accent english
- some enemies sound like they are right next to you, but they're actually pretty far away.
- checkpoints should be placed better. There should be a checkpoint right before are radioactive exploration area, and not a checkpoint while you're exploring are radioactive area. Because if you run out a filters and have not enough stuff to craft more then you are guaranteed to die. And if your checkpoint is one minute before you run out then you're screwed.
- scripted boss fights are the worst. And the second mutant bear boss fight is just that. Worst part is that there's a believer with the lights behind it that makes you think you need to use it, but you can't. You have to damage the boss a lot then take damage purposely to trigger a cutscene, to end the fight.