well plenty of games that get eager bad reviews i enjoy quite a bit--see recent kane and lynch thread. also i've enjoyed hydravision's prior work with the obscure series. i'm not expecting a great game anyhow which is why i've always planned on waiting for the game to hit $20 range which is typical for my 'limit' for the loose genre of 'action adventure' game. i do appreciate the heads up, but ionstormsucks maybe you could elaborate a bit more as to your problems with the game?
Well, the main point are really the controls. The game was designed for a console audience in mind. Even on consoles and with a joypad the controls are utterly complicated, but on the PC with mouse and keyboard it's an absolute nightmare. This is especially bad since there are quite a few sequences and actions in the game where you have to act fast. After a while you'll get more into it, that's true, but even then you'll encounter situations which are utterly frustrating, because you'll simply be not fast enough. That's what really kills the game off. Simple actions which should only require a few clicks become a nightmare in this game, it simply sucks after a while.
Another thing is that the game offers a first person view (which allows you to strafe), but the game is full of scripted sequences that throw you out of the first person and into the third person mode which is simply crappy. You cannot strafe in third person and the wasd controls function pretty much like the analog stick of a joypad - it's horrible. The game does not always stay behind you, in fact very often it will change to a disturbing angle - absolutely not state of the art if you're asking me.
The gfx are not bad, but also not really good for pc standards... you can clearly see it was ported over from a console. Of course it has a lot of clipping bugs, who would have guessed it... and some textures are simply ugly.
Then there is saving... you can save any time, but up until now, I have not found out what the save function actually does. If I die I start where the game wants me to start, and not where I saved. As expected these save points are often poorly chosen which makes the game even more frustrating.
What makes matters worse is that AITD V could be very good game. It has a great atmosphere, and you really want to like the game. The problem is really that the game mechanics utterly suck and make fighting, etc. a nightmare. Playing AITD feels a bit like being a disabled or handicapped person - even the most simple actions turn into complex and complicated undertakings.
I can only recommend you to wait until the price drops (which cannot take too long really) and pick it up then. Maybe they'll even have it patched up by then...