It's no surprise to anyone at this point that Cyberpunk 2077 was released in an abysmally unfinished state. With numerous retailers offering refunds on the game, it's a wonder how CD Projekt Red ever expected to get away with their actions. They built up so much hype in the 8 years since its announcement that expecting anything less than the extreme backlash they received is unimaginable.
But we all know that. I've seen plenty of reviews where they say the game would be incredible if they just managed to iron out these bugs, something that I'm confident CDPR will eventually do. However, I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment. Because even if the bugs were fixed and the game ran at a perfect 60 FPS through and through at its best settings, what you'd be left with is a fun game with a ton of potential that's held back by dated design, awkward progression, and trying to do too much at once.
Don't get me wrong, Cyberpunk is an impressive game in terms of scope, scale and ambition. At it's best, a stellar mix of Fallout, Watch Dogs, and Grand Theft Auto. Night City is massive and full of things to do, there's a ton of variety in how you build your character, and the story can be a blast, but for every one of those elements there's something that takes away from the experience right around the corner.
The story is engaging and entertaining, but it tries to use spectacle and shock to make up for a lack of imagination- full of binary or tertiary choices that all lead to one of a small number of predetermined paths. Night City itself feels like it was designed by an edgy 12 year-old with guns and drugs for sale on every corner, gratuitous sex scenes that serve no narrative prupose, and a complete lack of creativity outside of the basics for a futuristic dystopia. And while that would be fine if Night City's various gigs and encounters were entertaining or the environments interesting and fun to explore, the game fails to give the player much direction or reason to want to progress.
Luckily the characters are well written, especially the main partners you'll have with you for the ride. Panam, Jackie, Dexter DeShawn, they're all great and well performed. Even Keanu Reeves's Johnny Silverhand, while a completely irredeemable prick from start to finish, kinda grew on me by the end to the point where it felt like a love hate relationship rather than a hate-hate one.
As far as the gameplay goes, the shooting is fun, but weapon choice is almost entirely about the types of weapon and their DPS and once you find something powerful, enemies become an absolute joke. Melee is an option, but it's incredibly awkward in first person and doesn't offer many benefits that aren't better taken care of with a shotgun. The world is massive, but most of the gigs are rinse and repeat stealth-combat encounters.
The driving can also be a chore. With a super zoomed-in mini map you never really know when a turn is coming up, leading to a lot of slamming on the breaks or into concrete before reversing and turning around. Even if you do see the turn coming, the controls are so stiff that it might not matter anyway. A lot of this frustration could have been solved with a GPS marker on the road, but for some inexplicable reason that feature's exclusively relegated to the racing missions.
The worst of it is the stealth. I chose to go for an intelligence-engineering build. Meaning I could craft and upgrade weapons, or hack my way into different locations. While it was cool to see the different dialogue options offered to me due to my background and skills, the skills themselves weren't all that useful. Crafting doesn't mean much when ingredients are incredibly rare and you can always find more powerful weapons lying on the ground with dead bodies. Hacking can be fun, but often ends in frustration since enemies are alerted to your presence upon being hacked, made even worse when the game commits the cardinal sin of stealth- having all enemies know your exact location the second one of them notices you combined with them never losing sight of you until they're dead. No hiding, very few opportunities to take out enemies with silenced weapons, and close-range stealth is entirely handled by the typical sneak up and grab option. So while it could be fun to spread daemon hacks into enemies one by one until an area's clear, the high risk isn't worth the effort since going in and blasting with a pulse rifle gets the job done in a tenth of the time.
When it comes down to it, Cyberpunk 2077 is not a bad game. There's a lot to love here and when it's fixed I can definitely recommend it to anyone who's a fan of Bethesda-style games or GTA. It just lacked the direction necessary to really make for a truly special or unique experience. Which is why Cyberpunk 2077 gets a 6.5 out of 10 for right now, but can get as high as an 8 if all of the bugs get taken care of.