@ssully: I had about 6 games in a row where we barely ever saw the monster. The best time I ever had with the game was when somehow the guy evolved to level 3 really quickly and our team of hunters went to the power generator and waiting for the monster to come - then we had a pretty cool fight. Thus far there is nothing really fun or enjoyable about tracking the monster down. I think if they introduced a "skiing" element like Tribes had the game could get a lot more interesting. Movement speed is really slow and in a game where you're constantly running after something the traversal should be the most enjoyable part.

I also think in order to evolve to the last stage the monster should have to fight the hunter and down one of them. Or some sort of mechanic that enforces confrontations. There is nothing worse than the aforementioned matches of running circles and not being able to catch up with the monster until he evolves to level 3.

I couldn't agree more. The movement wouldn't be so bad if the jetpack didn't take so long to recharge. I honestly cannot imagine how the hell hunters are going to catch up to the flying monster in the full game. I didn't play the alpha, but the idea of a monster that can just fly sounds awful.

Is one of those games that if someone else is sucking either in your team or opposite (in this case the monster), it just becomes a total chore.

@ssully: I think boost dashes should use separate fuel bars and the jetpack should recharge instantly once you land. The monster can constantly leap great distances while there are plenty of times when you can't clear 4 jumps in a row. All too often I'd find myself not quite making the jump and then slowly falling all the way to the ground, waiting for fuel to recharge, and climbing back up the wall. There was a game where I got a buff of +200% jetpack recharge speed - and that still barely made a difference.

Grappling hooks, booster pads, the game really needs something to propel you forwards. I saw a video with the flying monster and it seemed to completely dominate over the hunters in every way. It was incredibly quick and had super fast area damaging attacks. Looked like a rough time.

This game isn't for anyone counting content. If you like the mechanics enough, you know it's for you or not. Same as L4D. Everyone else will get it on sale and be fairweather players. Evolve is tailor made for players who ONLY want a few classes, a few maps and to whom lots of content is viewed as impossible to balance (it is) and quantity over quality. And that's legitimate to me. Like any niche game with big production it'll have to gouge its core (hence $15 per monster dlc) but this is how it goes.

Not being one of the core audience, I will get this on sale, play it for a few weeks, and that's that.

This seems like the sort of thing that would've been a UT or HL2 mod years ago, not a $70 game. Yikes.

It's interesting to see that most opinions of Evolve I've seen around the internet are anywhere between middling to overwhelmingly negative. I've been pretty excited for the game since I first heard of it, loved the alpha, and ever since I started playing the beta yesterday I've ranked up to 15, unlocked a bunch of characters, and I have to actually force myself to stop. This is as someone on the PS4 side of things too, so while I'm very much looking forward to the other game modes that they've made available on the bone beta, I'm having a lot of fun with hunt alone, and yes, I do play with randoms, and I actually prefer playing as a hunter. I just have a thing for asymmetric PvP, and this reminds me of some of my favorite custom maps from Warcraft 3. There's some stuff in the game that I'm not too happy with ( the dlc pricing mainly and the unlock system ), but the game itself is incredibly solid to me and I'm baffled at the negativity. It is certainly a more niche game, though, it's perfectly possible to pick up and play L4D while understanding only the basics of "shoot zombies in face", but Evolve requires at least a more thorough understanding of the basic mechanics in order to reach that same base enjoyment.

I've had plenty of extremely close nailbiting matches as a monster or as a hunter, steamrolled some, got steamrolled in others. Every game felt fresh and different. I would have been happy to communicate with my team with a mic if they had any, but most didn't, but the ability to plant a simple waypoint was suitable enough -- the thing about the roles being so defined is that everyone should already know what they're meant to be doing, as well as what their teammates are doing.

Got to say, though, that I've never found myself thinking of it as a blind follow-chase or going around in circles as I've seen it described by so many. I also definitely never felt like the hunters were slow. I tend to roll with the jetpack recharge perk, but even without it being able to leap ahead with the dodges made me feel perfectly mobile.

@ssully: I've had quite a few matches against the flying monster, Kraken. Most people were definitely less experienced with him so I guess I can't say for sure, but in a series of matches I played with a kraken player who very much knew what he was doing, catching up with him/finding him wasn't really a problem compared to Ggoliath. He does fly, albeit slowly with a sort of an air-dash, and the medic's tranq shot helps a ton. The most annoying thing about Kraken for me was actually his mobility when we already had him in a trap, he's hard to shoot and I'm bad at aiming, damn it.

I have to say despite my complaints with the game, I am having a pretty good time with it. When you have a team that knows whats going on it is a blast.

I also like how short the rounds are. I just had a really intense 11 minute match that felt way longer just because of how tense it was the entire time.

This has pretty much been my feelings since playing the alpha. It's super fun and the rounds feel tense and (usually) properly quick. After being so disappointed with Titanfall I am not sure if I can plop $60 down for the current offering.

So far I've been enjoying my time with Evolve. The guys from my website and I jumped on and streamed for a while, and towards the end we had developed a coherent team that worked together and we have a decent chance of beating the monster. We had one match that ended in a victory during the final moments as the monster was attacking the power relay, which was definitely a highlight.

But like many people have commented, can it be sustained? A lot of the time we were walking around aimlessly, looking for just a hint of the monster. I also found the sniper rifle on the default medic to be absolutely horrible - it takes far too long to zoom in, there is too much reticle art in the viewfinder, that more often than not I found it actually obscured my aiming and I ended up just no-scoping when I could.

Left 4 Dead will always be one of my favourite games. It forced teams to really bond, and work together. It was the tension of "just one more stage and we're home free" that had you sitting on edge. Evolve is missing that. I'm running around having a good time, hunting monsters and high fiving my teammates when we decimate, but how long can that remain interesting.

I think it's an interesting game, and I'll definitely be picking it up at release, but I wonder how many people will be playing Evolve six months later.

I got to spend some time finally with the beta and 2 other friends, so not a full team, but enough to coordinate. I was surprised by what was there, but also underwhelmed. The tracking part during a hunt was pretty boring. I get that actual tracking in real life probably isn't a blast either, but, shouldn't a video game be different? Other than that I liked how communication actually impacted how much damage we did to the monster, instead of everyone doing their own thing. The maps felt big, though I didn't play enough to actually start recognizing specific areas.

Overall, still an interesting concept, but definitely not a purchase for me. Not enough monsters, bottom line.

Seeing their DLC plans I hope this crashes and burns.

I'll wait till it's either F2P or bundled with PS+. We're not chumps.