Destruction All-Stars is one of the biggest disappointments I've played in a long time. It's a game with potential through the roof, but it fails on nearly every front to be anything more than a generic multiplayer experience. It just seems like for every great element the game has to offer something else takes it down a notch. The character designs, art style, and graphical fidelity are fantastic, but the skins are just boring recolors with no significant changes. The menus are static and take a long time to navigate. The concept of hopping in and out of cars is cool, but running on foot is clunky and doesn't have much utility in a match. The car combat is a stellar evolution of Twisted Metal, but the power ups aren't unique enough between characters, handling can be a major issue, and some characters just feel useless. And for some reason there's no music while actually playing a match. The only track I remember is the end game recap screen and that's because it's just the Uncharted theme song. Seriously, give it a listen sometime.

The existing modes include Mayhem (free for all and team) in which players get points by driving around the arena and destroying other players’ cars, Gridfall, a free-for-all battle royale where players attempt to be the last one standing as the stage falls away around them, Carnado has two teams destroy one another for gears that can then be deposited by destroying your car in the tornado in the middle of the arena, and Stockpile, which is like Carnado but the gears are used to capture points on the map. None of these modes is bad, but they all suffer from the flaws mentioned earlier.

In any given match there are two main modes of gameplay- on-foot and in-car. On-foot gameplay is only useful when you hop out of a car to avoid getting KOed and find another. Sure, you can run around the arena to collect gems and try your hand at the glitchy mechanic where you hop onto cars and steal them in a boring minigame, but it’s never truly engaging. Any time you’re out of your car you usually just wish you were still in one and the lackluster player abilities don’t help either.

Cars meanwhile, have three basic types- fast, heavy, and balanced. And while each does feel different to play, they all share the same design issues- the handling makes quick turns difficult to pull off while the obstacle-filled arenas make speed difficult to build. Even breaker cars (unique ultimate cars with special abilities for each character) are either completely useless or just plain boring. That being said, it’s still immensely satisfying to smash into a player and knock them out or to just barely dodge an incoming attacker with a side boost. The problem is that those moments are few and far between. It constantly feels too realistic for crazy, arcadey combat and too zany for a realistic destruction derby. A half-measured attempt to create a balanced experience over a fun one, resulting in a game that can be enjoyable for a few matches, but never quite lives up to the mountain of potential behind its concept.

Overall, the gameplay can be fun and unique, but there are hardly any players around. Hell, I still haven't played Gridfall despite trying about a dozen times to get into a match. And while that could be caused by it being a PS5 exclusive, the game itself should have been delayed until some basic features were added, so really it's on them. And of course, worst of all are the egregious microtransactions. Now, I'm no Jim Sterling- I think a 60 dollar game can absolutely have microtransactions and loot boxes as long as it provides a 60 dollar value. Overwatch being a solid example. Destruction All-Stars, on the other hand, was originally going to charge SEVENTY DOLLARS for an unfinished game with what is now a dying playerbase and then on top of that charge even MORE money to play the game's mediocre single-player challenges. Locking gameplay behind a paywall when you're already planning to charge $70 for the game is absolutely disgusting and something I cannot support. If the game winds up going free-to-play for everyone it's worth giving it a try and I hope the developers can figure out a way to fix the many flaws, but in the end Destruction All-Stars is a massive disappointment and a waste of a talented development team.