Well, after waiting over 2 years for the game, I just played for about two hours and pretty much hate it
The art style and everything is fantastic, but the gameplay is dreadful.

-There is absolutely no sense of direction at any time.
-your AI team mates are 100% useless, making playing solo impossible.
-Your guns do little to no damage, and run out of ammo almost instantly.
-The ENTIRE game is 8v8 deathmatch with some minor objectives tossed in for variety.
-XP is character specific, but then you must spend it on different classes, so essentially it's class specific.
-Freeplay mode with all of its "options" is a joke. You pick the map and number of players, that's it.

All in all I will mess with it this weekend to get some achievements, but already don't want to play anymore. My friend was over and he played for a total of 6 minutes before turning it off. If you love Team Fortress 2 more than any other game made and want some multiplayer gaming, I would say try it out. Everyone else, save your money for LA Noire.

4/10

Thanks for the timely info!

I had no idea about this:
Thankfully I was able to still cancel my amazon pre-order.

Disappointing to hear, but this (and Homefront and Bulletstorm) is why I keep saying never pre-order a new IP without seeing some unbiased reviews first.

Holy shit I'm going to break this game in half. On top of everything else bad about it, I just realized it has rubberband AI. The last mission in the game (yes I'm already there and only played for about 2.5 hours) is un-winnable solo. It's a defend mission, which requires you to stand in one spot for 10 minutes and basically do nothing until time runs out to win. Only problem, once the clock hits 2 minutes exactly, the ENTIRE team rushes in, murders everyone, and blows the objective up. I've wasted 4 tries (40 minutes) on this piece of crap. This is not a 1990's racing game, why the hell would there be rubberband AI?

FWIW, I loved Bulletstorm and despised Homefront.

thanks discostu1337 ...I did not have this on preorder because I knew something was wrong with it...but I had 3 friends who all just canceled their order from amazon....we can all wait....

No problem, just trying to save you guys some money

Thanks for the heads up about the game not being exactly what we thought it would be. I told my brother about what you said and his response was "i'll wait until I see some real reviews and not what people post on message boards." I replied to him that he can piss his money away if he chooses. I will likely not even bother with this game even when it hits the bargain bin.

Check this out from JustinTV....

http://www.justin.tv/watchgamesearly#/w/1175448144

I'm watching it right now as there is nothing in the game that wows me or even peaks my interest.

I watched almost anhour of it on and off and it doesn't look like any of the videos I've seen.

http://www.justin.tv/watchgamesearly#/w/1175448144 (no longer available by the way)

One of the first things that jumped out was the constant enemy AI Bots around every corner, the few direct hits that took you down almost right away, the whimpy "grenades" that looked like a small M80 going off and your so-so supported AI Bots.

I already know two friends that are now in "wait-and-see" on this while one is getting the pc version instead of the 360 one. I'm not going to say "Homefront" but a lot of hype for this and suddenly the 11th hour comes along, no demo, no real solid previews and some leaked in game footage has many taking a serious look on their pre-orders.


UPDATE...better hurry and catch this before it gets canned...http://www.justin.tv/sheh4teme2/b/285321957?

The pushing it up a week also has me a bit worried. It's like they're trying to dump as many copies as possible before people figure out it is shit.

Well, I managed to beat the entire game solo, would have been much easier with a buddy or two. I swear to god, the AI will run across the map to build and guard a turret, rather than protect you or an objective. It was insane.

If anyone is wondering about game length, I would say about 5 hours to beat every level and almost reach rank 5 (max rank). There are 6 missions, which you play twice, once for each faction. Then there are 4 extra "what if" missions to complete. If you get lucky and can hold the enemy AI off, you can beat a level in under 10 minutes. For online play, its just those 6 maps, and you would be one of the two factions. Nothing more

Scuttlebutt I've been hearing has been rough.

How does moving the release date up a week make them to dump any more copies on an unsuspecting public (assuming there a review blackout until the release date)? It seems they moved it up to get out of the way of LA Noire and perhaps to hopefully get folks to buy Brink a week early with the plan of rolling their Kmart or Amazon purchase credit into LA Noire the next week.
Regardless of whether the game is good or crap, that seems like the smarter move.

The longer the game is out there but yet not released to the public allows more unbiased reviews of the game to hit the streets. Obviously the game wasn't going to age like fine wine and get any better so they decided to get it out there. I do agree that they want to avoid direct competition with LA Noire but I don't think that is their only reason for releasing it earlier than previously planned. I was looking forward to this game but after watching about a half hour of that stream is looked boring as hell. Even the guy playing was talking about the lack of a story and just doing stupid objectives while killing the computer bots.

1: There are no early reviews of this game out. At least not official ones. There is a review embargo that is in place until the game is released. It didn't matter what the release date was, that embargo would have been in effect until that date.

2: The reason that game is "out there" for folks like discostu to try it early is that it hits retail shelves in three days. If the release date were still 5/17 , they'd be telling us about it and streaming the gameplay next weekend instead of this one.

But like you, I've done nearly a total 180 on this game (178, maybe?). I really doubt I'll be getting it now.

Many of the things mentioned in this opinion piece by discostu1337 are inaccurate or misleading:

-There is absolutely no sense of direction at any time.

There's plenty of direction. You have missions and tasks, overlays and chatter all directing you where to go. What this game doesn't have is a series of tight (albeit pretty) corridors you're forced down a la COD.

-your AI team mates are 100% useless, making playing solo impossible.

I'll give you that you will need to coddle the AI a bit and they don't make the best decisions at times. However, I wonder if they "sucked" because disco didn't stick with them and work with them as a team? They do revive and support you with buffs and ammo... but they only do this as long as you're doing the most important thing for your team at the time... if you're not, you're way down their priority list. So, if you're off Rambo-ing and not getting the objective done or defended, they won't give two squirts about you. I hope human players are as smart.

-Your guns do little to no damage, and run out of ammo almost instantly.

This is not COD. This is a successor to a Quake/Enemy Territory game. Players are beefy and ammo management is key. Also, there's no aim assist (by default) on consoles, so sorry, no coddling. You actually have to aim. My guess is the OP has gotten so used to his console-crutch that he basically can't aim well anymore. Guns do plenty of damage but work best when burst-firing (as guns should work). Just check the myriad of videos out there from decent players getting headshots. Damage is fine.

Relatively low ammo counts is intended for two reasons: a) working with your teammate soldiers to restock and b) keeping you close to your team so you can work with them overall as a group. Again, if you lonewolf, you're not helping anyone but yourself and Brink will punish you by design. Medics will leave you rotting and soldiers won't restock you.

-The ENTIRE game is 8v8 deathmatch with some minor objectives tossed in for variety.

The entire Campaign Mode has set missions and player values, yes. Brink has always been an objective-based, non-corridor shooter and at no point will you be "on-rails" in this game. What were you expecting? COD's cutscenes (aka hidden load screens) every 5 seconds?

-Freeplay mode with all of its "options" is a joke. You pick the map and number of players, that's it.

In Freeplay Mode, you can alter friendly fire settings, stopwatch time-limit handling, etc. Consoles do get the short-end of the stick when it comes to server/game customization because they don't have dedicated servers. Oh well; you chose your poison.

-XP is character specific, but then you must spend it on different classes, so essentially it's class specific.

Incorrect. There are several "universal" abilities that are available no matter one's class. The higher level abilities tend to cater to a single class because by then, you hopefully have an idea of a class you favor or excel at, so you can specialize. Of course, once you hit the level cap, further XP gained on a capped character can be dumped into any new characters, allowing you to quickly have multiple characters that specialize in anything that suits your preferred playing styles. This was intentional, this was well-known before release.

===

For those that are running off to cancel their preorders on account of discostu1337's opinion... do some research. Find out if Brink is something that suits you. Brink is not COD. Brink is not one-shot-kills. Brink is not slow (tho it looks slow on consoles b/c you can't alter your FOV... PC gamers can get theirs up to 110, thankfully).

Brink SP/CoOp is essentially offline play versus bots--there's no on-rails/set-path story campaign like COD, but there certainly is a story and there are cutscenes to drive it that bookend each mission.

Brink lacks aim assist (by default)... you will suck at first until you learn how to aim again. Stick with it, though, and you'll be surprised at how rewarding it can be.

I watched a guy play the game for more than one level and close to an hour and there was very little that I was interested in. I can see where this game will appeal to quite a few players but it isn't quite what I expected it to be. I've gotta save my money for L.A. Noire at this point and maybe take a look at this game when it hits the 20 dollar or less price point. And I have to wonder why the previous poster's very first post on here is a long rant defending the game and debating another talker's opinion of the game.

Christ, I would of thought you worked for Splash Damage or Bethesda with the epic advertisement you just posted, not as a "announcer" for Brink.tv. We get it, Brink is amazing, and COD is trash.

Yeah - Goliathvt, you should send me a PM with your contact info please.

That long diatribe made me less interested in this game than before. Thanks, noob.

Holy crap, that was awesome, I never complained about auto-aim or corridors though. He is right about the comparison to Enemy Territory Quake Wars, though. If you love that game (I don't know anyone that does) you may find some fun in Brink. I think the fact that someone who most likely works for the company has to come here to defend an opinion shows their lack of optimism for the game.

Apparently I like COD, sorry guys. I'm gonna go play some Black Ops!

Thanks for the heads up guys....I went ahead and canceled my order and will revisit this title at a much later date if it is even worth revisiting. I have a lot to play currently anyhow so this was just going to add to my backlog.

The problem with that is you have a NEW IP and they are not allowing early reviews...How the fuck am I suppose to bases my opinion JUST on what the people who made the game say or shovel out with videos?

I always love how when someone says they are waiting for reviews to buy a new game, people blast them as idiots because they are not buying a game blindly...

When it comes to Gears 3....I don't need an early review, I know what I am going to get...

When it comes to Brink...before my group puts out 240 bucks on a game, we want to hear what others think, especially from people we have agreed with in the past....

Also, when it comes to discostu1337 I use the same rule I use with RPG game reviews...I always add 1-2 points to the score to get what I will probably think of the game ...Unfortunately a 5-6 out of 10 does not get my money...