Just not Enough
For a game that spent so long in development, you'd expect more than this.
Just to clarify things: I first played the game in Late November 2011. When Brink was released, bad netcode, and crippling bugs and poor optimization for ATI cards ensured that I did not buy it. Come a few months later, the patches have been applied, I have a powerful Nvidia card and it was on sale for 5 dollars, so I got it.
Well, 5 bucks not well spent.
I won't bore you with a long review: Essentially Brink has the following flaws:
1) Not enough maps. Only 8 are on offer and they aren't very big. Although there are varied objectives, there is only one set of objectives per match and they don't change, unlike Killzone 2 and 3's dynamic multiplayer. Some new maps were added later as free DLC (not free if you didn't buy it on day one), but it's too little too late.
2) The guns and weapons are unsatisfying. Really, I have no idea why they spent so much time emphasizing the gun customization - all guns feel the same in their respective classes. All Assault rifles feel the same, all SMGs feel the same, all rifles feel the same and none of them feel very fun to shoot.
3) The pace is like molasses. I can get behind games that have a slower pace. TF2 wasn't exactly fast-paced, neither is BF3, but those games has action that complemented the slow pacing. Brink feels like what MW2 or MW3 would feel like if every enemy took roughly 4 times as many bullets to kill.
4) The levels are essentially just corridors and a few rooms. Many times the gameplay will crawl to a halt as the game will devolve into a stalemate over one control point or choke point. Yes, if you have a really good, co-ordinated team, you can break through that. But honestly, who is still playing this game, and who has formed lasting clans for it?
5) The Single player experience is a joke. It's just bot mutliplayer matches. And all the friendly bots are morons who can barely complete an objective.
6) Really annoying voice acting: "STOP THEM BROTHERS!" "THE ENEMY HAS DEPLOYED MINES!" "THEY'VE TAKEN OUR COMMAND POST". If you've played Brink for more than a few hours, those phrases will be embedded in your brain.
7) Lame story, lame characters. The ark is a cool concept. The two sides of the story aren't explicitly evil or good. But the story ultimately goes nowhere and you've got only a handful of audiologs to flesh out the world. Whoopee.
Brink also has the following positives:
1) Quite striking art design
2) Some interesting character customization
3) All the classes are quite important and varied to a degree
4) It's pretty functional.
