The huge map is it's biggest feature and biggest flaw all in one.
As odd as it sounds the worst part of any open-world game is the open-world part.
The open-worlds in Assassin's Creed or infamous are fantastic because your doing something beside driving.  
 
In every single open world game to get a mission you have to drive for like 15 minutes across the world/ city to get a cutscene. Then after that cutscene guess what you have todrive 15 or 20 minutes to somewhere else or back the way you came and either shoot a guy. Then you start that process all over again for like 30 times then the game ends. 
 
Also driving crazy running over people stopping being fun years and years ago and Just Cause 2 has the worst checkpointing ever.

" Is everyone kidding about   Alpha Protocol? Jeff gave it 3 stars and it didn't look that great... "

agreed.  great game.

" @trophyhunter: I am not saying everything Jeff says is truth and I can't form my own opinions...  But why would he give it such a poor review if it's as good as you say? I have other games that are higher rated that I could play before a game that looked like it wasn't finished.  "

Seeing this post again has reminded me that I need to make my 47% completion in JC2 into a 75% completion. And dude, that game is so fucking pretty.... SO PRETTY! Just Cause 2 is to pretty what Kirby's Epic Yarn is to cute. I honestly think it belongs in my top 10 games of all time, its just, AHHHHHHHHHH, but I like really odd aspects of games, 

Alpha Protocol has grown on my every time I fire it up... but Just Cause 2 had me from the very first moment. I also have to give Avalanche props for some totally-not-crap DLC. I'll absolutely pay 99 cents for a cool gun, parachute rockets, or car.

That game is fucking bananas.

This game was so awesome, it makes me scream laughter like I have ADHD (The only other game in recent memory that did that is Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood). I loved the shitty voice acting, so-terrible-they're-good physics, the dumb AI, the huge scale, and the extremely awesome shit you can do. My game of the year, for sure (AA:B comes second, by the way).

The gameplay was great but the voice acting was not "so bad its good" and neither was the writing or plot.  They were less in on the joke than it initially seemed with how dumb the whole setup and general tone are.  The missions were also just about all garbage and the main storyline was hardly touched by me. And when I say the gameplay is good, I should say everything but the shooting, which was not satisfying.  Also, why so stingy with ammunition?  You think in a game this crazy they would just give you plenty of resources and let you have fun.  It is a really pretty game with awesome draw distances, but for just open world landscape beauty I'd go with Red Dead, which was truly stunning in some areas.
 
Once they improve all the areas apart from the gameplay with another game they will really have something, so I hope they are working on a follow up.  Just Cause 2 may be the most underrated game of the year but it certainly has plenty of flaws that other open world action games do not have or are less glaring in (see Red Dead Redemption) and if you don't like the gameplay (which isn't for everyone) you will hate the game.

Still haven't played it. A definite 2011 purchase, though, when I spot it for around £20 or so.

" @blacklabeldomm said:

" I played it with the sound off, listening to my music. Guess why? In this day and age, GTA4 and RDR have something Just Cause doesn't: A great fucking story. 
 

I would rather play on a reasonably large area with stuff to do and a great story than an enormous landmass with shitty writing and nothing to do after 2 hours.

"

I think you missed the point of the game. "

"Was it the crazy jets I stole? The stunt position? The crazy parachute? I did all those things (in the first 2 hours), what more do you want from me? I knew the story was going to be terrible long before it came out but this game is the definition of grind, destroying over a hundred bases (which are almost all the same) is not a great way to extend gameplay in my opinion. "

I'll agree. This game is sick. I honestly have had more fun with this just because I love trying to break the physics.