So Far Cry 2 does almost everything perfectly. Everything apart from the gameplay...
 

• Weapons are horrendously underpowered, very clunky and just plain boring to use.
• Respawning enemies that are hell bent on killing you (for no reason as of yet)
• Guns that jam... Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
• The fire mechanics which look good but arnt very. They should really have expanded way further with it.
• Enemies are dumb and have some sort of bullet proof skin...

Half of those go away in the later half of the game 
 
Go stealth, trust me. Get the stealth suit, the hunting rifle, the silenced smg and a weapon of your choice (I used the grenade launcher, for cases where I got caught and didn't have an escape)
 
If you really get into that type of gameplay, they game can be very rewarding.

I loved the game and i only got like 4 hours in i really need to go back to it sometime x]

Those damn diamonds also.... some are impossible to find! But i do agree on the weapon jamming, i mean it might have seemed a good idea, but when it rusts and jams, and your hiding behind a tree with a rusty pea-shooter against 15 men who are armed to the teeth, it's a bad idea.

I found this game boring too... there was just no interest to continue the story and those stupid guard posts totally ruined any momentum the game had...

I have similiar issues... in fact I may just boot it up. 
 
I just had way too many "Why the hell are they shooting at me?!" and "What'd I do?" moments. And games with contracts seem to overwhelm me. And not to mention driving a boat to a remote camp, fight to the death, barely make it out alive, find practically nothing, then realize they blew up your boat, and swimming to the nearest beach (miles away). RRRGH.
 
BUT 
 
I guess I'll pop it in and give it one more go, this time stealthier (thanks @Whisperkill). I'll get back to you!

I found that the respawning enemies and the fact that every person in the world wanted you dead made it the worst open world game I have played. I barely played it though. When the game says "Drive forever to your next mission" I said, "No, Thank you."

rarely i buy games and cant stand playing them... Farcry 2 is one of those games. I just do not feel like ever playing that game after the hour or so i did. shame, i rarely regret buying games

Really hated the guarded checkpoints in this game and the open world wasn't really all that open. It was either just a load of narrow pathways with un-passable hills on either side or it was the shitty checkpoint covered roads.

I played the game for hours and got practically nowhere.
 
Maybe this isn't one of those games you can start out on the hard difficulty with, but I bet the experience is awful no matter what you do. If you're on the west side of the map, you can bet your objective is going to be on the far east. Takes forever just to get around. The stupid guard post respawns thirty seconds after you clear them out suck, but they wouldn't be so bad if any of the guns were any good. And even then the guns being terrible wouldn't suck so much if they just gave you more ammo to play with. I ended up just trying to run everyone over.
 
I'd like to say something nice about the game but I can't think of anything.

I agree with most of that, in addition the graphics and art style was simply terrible. Everything looked like it was made of plastic. 

I felt the exact same way.  At first it seemed like there was a lot of potential for greatness but it quickly became boring and relentlessly frustrating.  The constant enemy encounters quickly became repetitive and killed any desire I had to explore the world.

I don't have any complaints with Far Cry 2. I liked it. I had to adjust to how it plays because of it being "more realistic", but I liked the experience that I was having.

WHHHHAAAAAT! Far Cry 2 was one of the greatest games of 2008!

" Those damn diamonds also.... some are impossible to find! But i do agree on the weapon jamming, i mean it might have seemed a good idea, but when it rusts and jams, and your hiding behind a tree with a rusty pea-shooter against 15 men who are armed to the teeth, it's a bad idea. "

Ugh, i went into this game with high expectations and just didn't get anywhere, the story was dull and uninteresting, the damn checkpoints were everywhere, and the multiplayer was lackluster.  I just ended up burning things, as that was the only part of the game i enjoyed.  Red Faction is in a similar position if you ask me.

I loved Far Cry 2, I think it was way better than the original.

I really REALLY liked parts of Far cry 2 (setting up ambushes, assassinations,pulling over to fix up your car and check the map, stealth(atleast when it worked), all the fairly sizeable bases that your were able to take out from 500m, messing about in some custom maps in multiplayer (those pirate ship maps were pretty fun)) however I couldn't keep playing when I got to the second part of the map, there were just too many things that people have already mentioned pulling me down and turning me off

I loved Far Cry 2, and was mad obsessed by it... until I got the save game bug about 65% of the way through. It hasn't come out of the drawer since.
 
Before that, though, I was thoroughly engrossed in the goings on. It was a really immersive game, and you could decide on the fly how you wanted to tackle any situation. Sometimes it was fun to go spewing hot lead death, other times you could torch the place from afar or even go stealth. And it was such a good looking game, too. There were many instances where I'd just set the controller down and marvel at the sun-dappled scenery before me.

Yeah, I freaking hated this game so much. One of the biggest disappoints I've ever played. I hated pretty much everything about it. In fact, at this point, I even hate talking about it. Far Cry 2 is a terrible game. It's not worthy of my typing.

I enjoyed the game for about the first fourth, then I got bored out of my mind by it.  I will say, though, the last half-hour of that game is disgustingly awesome gameplay-wise.

I am playing Far Cry 2 on the pc at the moment, I got it on steam on sale. I am enjoying it. I do find the respawning enemies in posts to be annoying . maybe if they spawned daily it would be better . The gun jamming is not to bad , you just need to make sure you keep spare ones in safe houses and watch the condition of them . I am also playing the night sneak in and silenced approach. The story is not great but the world is amazing. I think I am up to a point where the story may pick up a little . Other than my game crashes all the time normally after about 30 mins play. I just save alot. But the world looks amazing and i really like the environments i feel that that helps me get into the game more.

I had problems with this game too. But one day I shoulg go back and finish it off. I think it was better then just abandoning it after the half dozen hours or so I played of it.

I really love the game, but I can only play it in streaks. Online was fun because of the user maps, there are some fantastic ones on PS3. Most of the issues brought up here I have no problem with.  It does add one thing I think every FPS game needs. The running slide. Every FPS game needs to add this, when you are running, hit crouch and you slide. It is brilliant and something I had wanted in Call of Duty forever, that or a running dive, either or, just to be able to take cover quicker or dodge bullets.

I thought the guns got a lot better after you ditch that initial G3, but I had a lot of other complaints like the checkpoints and the lack of mission variety.

" So Far Cry 2 does almost everything perfectly. Everything apart from the gameplay...
 

• Weapons are horrendously underpowered, very clunky and just plain boring to use.
• Respawning enemies that are hell bent on killing you (for no reason as of yet)
• Guns that jam... Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
• The fire mechanics which look good but arnt very. They should really have expanded way further with it.
• Enemies are dumb and have some sort of bullet proof skin...

 How could the developers spend so long creating this amazing world, then make it such a joyless place to be? "

I really appreciated what they tried to do with Far Cry 2.  I think it turned out much better than Far Cry or Crysis overall.
 
Once you get used to navigating your way around the map, without bumping into checkpoints all the time, it has quite a nice pace to it.  I didn't think the dynamic story worked particularly well and the ending was awful, but I really liked how it played and how busted up and dirty the world felt.  I thought it looked brilliant too.  Setting up an ambush on a convoy of trucks at night and then taking out the lead truck with the blooper and watching the fire spread was awesome.  Working your way up into the hills over a base and then sniping everything explodey inside was also awesome.  It's definitely one of those games which requires a bit of effort on the part of the player to make it really work - if you try and rush through it I think you are unlikely to enjoy it.

" Sounds like the OP ragequit after an hour because pretty much all those problems vanish after you get better weapons. "

" I really appreciated what they tried to do with Far Cry 2.  I think it turned out much better than Far Cry or Crysis overall. Once you get used to navigating your way around the map, without bumping into checkpoints all the time, it has quite a nice pace to it.  I didn't think the dynamic story worked particularly well and the ending was awful, but I really liked how it played and how busted up and dirty the world felt.  I thought it looked brilliant too.  Setting up an ambush on a convoy of trucks at night and then taking out the lead truck with the blooper and watching the fire spread was awesome.  Working your way up into the hills over a base and then sniping everything explodey inside was also awesome.  It's definitely one of those games which requires a bit of effort on the part of the player to make it really work - if you try and rush through it I think you are unlikely to enjoy it. "

Yeah i also loved this game, very handsome and a nice story.    

I've played Far Cry 2 and Resident Evil 5 and I'm already bored of African settings :/

" @Rayfield said:

" Sounds like the OP ragequit after an hour because pretty much all those problems vanish after you get better weapons. "

Played the game for a while when it released and stopped  I couldent remember why I stopped so I poped it back in, then I remembered.   Those problems did not vanish for me. "

Also the game tried to ground you in heavy realism with dynamic weather, fire, degrading weapons, malaria medicine.
And then you pop out your magic map.......

Far Cry 2 is a popular game to rag on it seems.  I don't see how when it averages an 85 on MetaCritic, a very good score.
 
If you are a dumbass and don't care about unlocking the weapons and going out and finding the diamonds, you will not have fun.  However it was so fun for me building my arsenal, making choices about which weapons I would buy, what my loadout would be and what playstyle I wanted to use.  This is the kind of game fans of the STALKER series would also like.  I loved driving around and it became much better once you figured out buses existed.  The little adventures outside the story were brilliant, like finding the handgliders to get to hard-to-reach diamonds.
 
The story of the game pits two equally evil African political military groups against one-another.  So when the game decided to have the characters never tell either members of each organization, I was happy.  The reason is I got to shoot at each of those scumbags.  It got tedious after a while yes, but it was fun just driving through a group of dudes, driving to separate the ones in the car from the rest, getting out, smoking them and taking their car because mine was on fire.
 
It does fall victim to the same open-world problems but I never had a problem with that on the PC because I put on some music in the meantime while I was driving across the African plains at night.  The story does suck and I bet the dynamic part of didn't work too well but it was great for what it was.

You guys are all missing another worst part:
"I'll take your mission"
*brings up map*
*Notices mission is right at the other side of the map*
"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

You think Far Cry 2 did the level design right? No sir. Play STALKER Call of Pripyat and try again.
 
I like what they tried to do, but it didn't deliver what I had hoped. It's obvious the Far Cry 2 team payed attention to STALKER though.

I think Far Cry 2's biggest mistake is being a sandbox game.  If they had fixed the damage and made an interesting story, it would've been great, instead they over-sandbox-ed it.

Farcry 2 was a masterpiece. You didn't like it, or so it sounds, because you couldn't get immersed, or it "was too hard"

I actually played more of the multiplayer than anything else, becuase the user-maps actually turned out pretty sweet.  
 
The singleplayer had an incredible environment. That being said, it suffered a little with those damn checkpoints, but I loved everything else. 

It took me months to actually get into  Far Cry 2. The beginning of the game is pretty slow, but once things pick up it is fantastic. Flaws aside, it is one of the most interesting shooters I have ever played.

Its supposed to be realistic (trys to be anyway). Its pretty bland most of the time but I really enjoy it. The freedom, scale and just the way the weather changes is really cool. 
 
Although I'm pissed off there aen't any dangerous animals, hardly any animals actually. Ubisoft said the trigens would be replaced by wildlife. 
 
@MrKlorox said:

"You think Far Cry 2 did the level design right? No sir. Play STALKER Call of Pripyat and try again.  I like what they tried to do, but it didn't deliver what I had hoped. It's obvious the Far Cry 2 team payed attention to STALKER though. "

I find it to be way more inspired by Boiling Point, horrible game but good concept.
   

"You guys are all missing another worst part: "I'll take your mission" *brings up map* *Notices mission is right at the other side of the map* "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-" "

because crytek didn't develop it.