The Division is an addictive, engaging experience with interesting missions set in a visually impressive and inspiring world. New York is here portrayed exceptionally well, immersive and completely convincing. The controls in the game are extremely intuitive and easy to pick up, and the excellent tutorial will have even the most novice shooter taking cover, moving through the locations, and gunning down the villains in no time. The cover system, including cover-to-cover movement, is flawless. There is a dizzying array of weapons and gear to choose from, with unique talents and bonuses, as well as skills you can choose based on your own preferences, allowing for tremendous customization. This game is very playable for gamers of all skill levels, because missions indicate difficulty level, so you can choose to challenge yourself and do higher level missions or take it easy and wait until you are at a level higher than the mission before tackling it. Side missions don't indicate difficulty, but neighborhoods have difficulties associated with them, so it is easy to choose your level of challenge. After you complete the satisfying story line, and reach level 30, you are given "daily challenges" to keep you coming back. I've become addicted to signing in daily and checking tasks off the list, and earning good rewards for doing so, such as the coveted Phoenix credits that help you to gain many of the best gear and weapons in the game. I must concede, however, that these tasks can get repetitive. If you are primarily a solo player and concerned about the "online" nature of the game - don't worry. You can do the majority of this game successfully in solo mode and never need to team up if you don't want to. Repeating missions on "challenging" mode and doing incursions may be out of reach, but that is not much content to miss out on. I play this game 90% solo. Having described the PvE portion of the game, the PvP area, the "Dark Zone" needs to be addressed. This area can be fun to play under certain circumstances (your agent's level, current activity in the DZ), and can be played solo. It can be an exciting, intense feeling taking the plunge and not knowing if a potential rogue player could be right around the corner (rogue icons don't show up on your compass until they have attacked someone, and are temporary.) On the other hand, the system needs to be fixed, because as it stands rogues "camp out" at certain entry points to the Dark Zone and travel in "packs" of four attacking solo players, even those with no loot (read: for no reason!) A fix for this would be separate solo and squad Dark Zone instances. But as it stands right now, I avoid it. It is more playable with my second, lower level agent who receives a different Dark Zone instance than my level 30 agent, who encounters the problems I described above even at the most obscure hours of the day and days of the week. As for the Underground expansion, I enjoy having a new way to play, with different environments and the ability to apply "handicaps" for better rewards, although the lack of checkpoints can become agitating and the areas and missions can be, and feel, similar and repetitive. All-in-all, however, it's worth the upgrade to expand your options and keep your interest peaked.
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