I think it does an okay job of maintaining that Tom Clancy tone and feel, which is never going to resonate with a lot of people. That sort of techno-thriller late 80s atmosphere with quiet competent professionals is... always a taste thing. So people who complain that it doesn't go all out wild like Saints Row or whatnot with the wackiness is... I mean, it is what it is.

You can tell they definitely watched a hell of a lot of Narcos though. The whole story campaign is basically Narcos, even with the catalyst of that one DEA agent being killed. The real life guy who got killed in Mexico was "Kiki" Camarena. They call him "Chichi" or something in the game.

There's a lot of bugs and unpolished stuff in the game. But I admit, it's still fun to go out and collect guns and attachments. Unlike something like Assassin's Creed or DAI, where you're collecting feathers or shards or some bullshit, collecting new guns and attachments is really satisfying and addicting. Sneaking into a Unidad base and getting a Mk17 FN SCAR-H and seeing the huge increase in damage and accuracy compared to your assault rifle is a great feeling. So it's got that going for it.

One prominent bug has a line of dialogue about a "Quinoa factory" playing over and over again. It's horribly annoying, and now I seem to be getting another one about "high profile" coming on strong. Another serious one has your drone and binoculars unavailable for use for some reason. And there's the standard open work jank where you'll fall into a terrain pit and be completely stuck and unable to get out without fast traveling, which is unpleasant since fast travel respawns every enemy in the region. There's a disappointing lack of persistence to the world, which is only somewhat better than Far Cry 2. The radio is horribly annoying (think Sofia Vergara) and never seems to quit anywhere on the map. And the cover penetration is completely inconsistent and bewildering. Chainlink fences and brick walls can be penetrated just fine, but ramshackle wooden fences and errant tree leaves and bushes are completely impenetrable.

The soft cover system is pretty much... not good. There are plenty of obvious cover elements that won't let you stick and peek out of. Instead, you'll just ADS and look into the top rim of the cover. And when you do get under cover, there's actually an issue where if there's a boundary on the sides of the cover, like a stack of tires or something, touching or brushing against it will bump you out of cover and you'll lose the ability to peek out. This makes no sense. There's also the issue that the game seemingly switches your shoulder perspective every single time you brush against any cover element in a room, to where your camera is constantly, schizophrenically switching from left to right, right to left, dozens of times through clearing a building. For those of us who play cover shooters and are used to looking over the right shoulder, with some situational switching to the left shoulder when appropriate, this is maddening.

The third person perspective shooting has problems, where you'll place your crosshair right on a bad guy as he rounds a corner, but the corner is actually still blocking your shots, which is frustrating and immediately alerts them. What you see in third person is not what you'll see in first person ADS. Now, the game does put a small red X over the crosshair when the target is blocked in this way, but it means you have to consciously be looking for the red X and seeing where the magical invisible boundary is between the blocked corner and the unblocked shot. This feels annoying and clunky in the heat of the action, when you should be focused on the enemy and his movements.

Of course, people will say the solution is just to toss out the third person camera shooting completely, and just do ADS. And yes, that's what I've been doing. However, even in first person ADS, the game still does not always shoot where your crosshair is. If you go prone and crawl up on an elevated ledge or some tower somewhere, to where the enemy's head is just peeking up over the ledge/floor, and place your crosshair on that head, you will not hit that head in your crosshair. Your shot will instead hit the ledge/floor right in front of you. This is incredibly annoying. There are plenty of shooters that have fixed this issue. Halo is the most famous. Halo will always have your shot hit where the crosshair is. I dunno what Ubisoft was thinking, but they went for a different route.

Customization of your character is good, though could be better with more camo options. Crye outfits are in the game, but without the major camo patterns like AOR1. There's no BDUs available. For now, most of the outfits tend toward a more casual appearance, like T-shirts and jeans. The major sticking point with most people right now is how you can't even customize your AI squad's outfits. So sure, you can meticulously gear your own character up to look like a Delta operator right out of "Black Hawk Down", or whatnot, but it'll be very irksome seeing him standing next to the other AI teammembers dressed in their casual covert ops gear.

Customization of guns is much better, with tons of camo paint schemes and attachments. The neat thing is, you can set an overall paint scheme for the gun, and then individually tweak each attachment with their own colors. Really like that detail.

I think the side missions are definitely repetitive, with basically four types of rebel missions repeating over and over again. However, the main story missions have been crafted pretty damn well and I'm satisfied with them. You've got some missions that take you out to deep swamps to take out drug submarines in their docks. Some of em are out on snowy mountaintops. One of em has you going to hit a drug lord compound. Along the outer perimeter are roving patrols that you need to isolate and kill. Then there's a few guards on the rooftop to snipe. Then a few guards on the interior that can be sniped through large windows. And finally, there was a large congregation of 4 Unidad soldiers and 3 cartel henchmen engaged in conversation right outside the entrance. I told my AI squad to sync kill three of the Unidad soldiers, while I lined my sights up to take out the last Unidad soldier and one cartel guard in a single penetrating sniper shot. Immediately afterwards, I pulled off two quick shots to eliminate the last two cartel guards. All without triggering any alerts. This whole compound "combat puzzle" to be solved, over a span of fifteen minutes, was immensely satisfying and really showcased Wildlands at its finest, for me. When you pull those missions off, it's somehow okay that at its heart, it's a very unpolished version of MGS V.