I finally got around to playing through Dying Light (I have owned a physical copy since the week it came out, and just kept bouncing off of it). There is a lot to like about it. The light survival aspects, the parkour, even the combat is pretty satisfying once you wrestle the controls under your grasp. The irritations of it (spawning, semi-silent enemies that don't appear on the map or on your "Detective Vision" surrounding you when you're trying to do something, the few times the parkour elements hang you out to dry and you plummet to your death) really, for me, were far outweighed by the stuff it did well.

That being said, the story was kind of an afterthought, and the ending sequence...hell, I would argue everything from the mid-boss fight with Tahir on within the main thread, is just downright terrible. For starters, you're magically removed of all of your stuff when you fight Tahir and his cohorts for no reason (I realize that the reason is to make the fight more challenging, but I hate that the game has this desire to set up a survival and crafting system and encourages you to use it, and then takes it away from you when you need it just because they couldn't be bothered to design a more involved boss fight -- Tahir is yet another human thug just with stronger attacks and a life bar). Then, you're in a situation where you don't have the ability to parry like he does, nor do you have anything you can use as a ranged weapon when he does, AND when he hits half health, they spawn in 3 or 4 buddies for him. It is doable (please, no git gud comments) but it isn't remotely fun and at the its worst is so frustrating that I could see it turning away players even that late in the game.

I didn't like the parkour chase sequence, but it did have a certain tension to it. It also falls to the same problems that Uncharted does: I die and it becomes less tense each time, until it's just a passing irritation to move the plot along. But I can appreciate a game about essentially about parkour throwing an extended, quasi-cinematic, challenging parkour sequence at you as a capper for the whole game. Then, however, we reach the end end. The final boss "fight". It's a QTE. It's bad. It's not even visually stimulating. It feels like they just wanted to ship the damn thing and get it out the door (I realize games aren't made this way, but it just feels so tacked on it's hard not to think that). Then the thing just ends. Now, I wasn't really all that invested in the story, but even so, this seemed like a really bad case of the "we're leaving room for a sequel" to me.

This was way longer than I expected it to be when I sat down and started writing. I realize this game's forum hasn't been posted in for about 7 months, so if this doesn't get any traction, no biggie. I was just curious if some of the other people that have played it had similar feelings to me about the game as a whole, and specifically the end. Or maybe some people liked it for a reason I'm just overlooking. Overall, I think it's a game I would recommend with a few caveats, and the dreaded "give it a few hours to get going" label.

I really liked the game. Also that tharir fight made sense imo. Hope they make a sequel.

@soulcake: Care to expand regarding Tahir?

It really is one of the worst last "levels" in any game I've ever played.

I really didn't have that much of a problem with the end of the game. Also, I would argue the "endgame" is playing co-op since its not a "one and done" single player/co-op game like most FPS games are. The game still lives on after you finish the final main story mission.

I thought the regular game was fun, but most of the DLC was pretty meh. The Following end-boss was just terrible

I will say that I think the story's resolution of "You're still trapped, there's not a real cure out there,and all you really did was kill the main psychopath" was annoying. I assume they don't look to resolve anything with that as they will more than likely move to a new location for a sequel, if they ever do one.

If you can play the following, the big dlc that came out after. I remember that mini campaign having a pretty good ending and driving around cars was way more fun than it had any right to be.

What I found irritating about the end was that I had been playing Co-Op since the word go and then for the last two missions you are just dumped out for single player only. I had thought they were going to try and bossify the main badguy with the virus (like they did in Dead Island) which would have made some sense in terms of raising stakes and how you balance one dude against a potential team of 4. But, nope, he was just a one armed man with a knife.

I liked the chase and parkour level up to the final showdown. Some parts lose a bit of tension depending on what you're carrying since camouflaging yourself from all the zombies just leaves you with the task of wandering around and not fighting through or trying to avoid anyone. Still, it was alright for me. My co-op buddy did not enjoy it though. Not one bit.

@solidsnak:Some of the quests in The following frustrated the hell outta me, I hated getting to quests which I found annoying to get to (cave, having to swim ect.) only to die and have to get to them again. Don't get me wrong I love this game and I've enjoyed the hell out of playing it but that part made me want to stop playing tbh it felt way worse than the main game :/

They do resolve it in the DLC "The Following". I thought this thread was going to be about the new DLC that they've been releasing and I was wondering if I should reinstall the game. It's been too long since i've played the ending to remember how bad it was. To be honest i've played so many shitty endgame boss fights to be phased by an anti-climatic QTE sequence.

(The Uncharted games are in a league of their own with bad endings)