Though a marvel in some ways, The Division left me deflated
The Division is a game which hooked me early, and hooked me hard. Its fantastic sense of place, attention to detail in its world, and general vibe was very appealing. I played through a fair number of story missions solo, and as I progressed further, decided to try some matchmaking - the experience was fantastic. No noticeable latency, well-tuned AI, players being able to use skills which synergized in a satisfying way, et cetera. Once my friends had some free time, we teamed up and hit the Dark Zone - and what an exhilarating, satisfying time that was! The Division was keeping pace to become one of my favourite games of all time.
The more I played, the more I realized just how incredible of a world Ubisoft Massive has crafted. Their rendition of New York City is, by far, the most elaborate and well-detailed version I have ever seen. Not only is its scale immense, but it also nails a lot of minute details. The layout of Times Square feels like real Times Square, and if you walk to the Broadway theatres in the district, they map almost 1:1 to my experience amongst them. It is also exciting to see landmarks like Madison Square Gardens and Grand Central Station in a decrepit state. Truly, it is the most well realized major city in any game I've played.
That being said, somewhere around hour 23, I lost any and all desire to continue playing. Reaching that point was a very gradual thing, but the reaction was decisive - I don't like The Division. There were a few negative experiences early on that I had written off as "ah that mission was probably just an outlier," but I started noting that the issues I had were becoming a core mechanic of the game. When it comes to RPG Shooters, I have come to expect a certain amount of bullet spongey enemies; but the excessiveness of enemy health became a problem for me in The Division. This, combined with a few other negative aspects ("just okay" shooting, bad side missions, poor scaling - I'll touch on these later) completely destroyed the positive momentum the game had built, and left me hesitant to continue playing.
Though I believe directly comparing games is often a lazy way to approach criticism, I cannot help but note how directly a certain other game (and its faults) mimic my feelings towards The Division. The original Mass Effect is a third person shooter with heavy focus on loot (most of which changes your looks, and weaponry), character abilities, bullet sponge-y enemies, and lackluster shooting. The thing about Mass Effect is that it is one of my favourite games of all time. I had a very easy time forgiving its faults because they were in service of a satisfying story. Furthermore, as you gained more/better weapons, it felt as though you were becoming more and more powerful. By the end of Mass Effect, I felt that my character was significantly stronger than when I'd started.
The problem with The Division is that, yes, you're getting more weapons with larger numbers; but in the end it doesn't really impact the gameplay. I never felt more powerful because the entire game scales to your level. This proves exceedingly frustrating for me, because when I was Level 25 and went back into an area marked for "Level 3 - 5," I was expecting to see those level 3 characters again. It would have felt satisfying to be able to one-shot the enemies who proved to be a challenge back at level 3; but, instead, all the enemies were around level 20 and still required me to expend most of my clip to take them down. Not only that, but the named enemies require an absolutely ludicrous amount of bullets to take down.
On top of this, having the game scale to you means that, as a high level character, it is nearly impossible to play the game co-op with friends who are just starting. If you party up with them (I should note, the system for getting groups of players together is fantastic) all of the enemies will scale to your level. So if I'm level 30, and my friend is level 3, he's going to be fighting level 28 enemies. This leads to the low-level players you're with having to sit in the back, literally doing nothing because if they step out they'll simply get one-shot.
One other thing this scaling affects is the feel of the play. What I mean by this is that, as you reach higher levels, your personal skill level doesn't feel like it makes much of a difference. Yes, getting headshots means your weapon does more damage; but it can still take a full clip to someone's head to bring them down at levels >20. At some point it is frustrating to know that you being a good shot means almost nothing.
These factors, on top of the story being very poor, and the other factors I've alluded to left me feeling deflated on The Division. Every one of the side missions became a chore, the loot that was dropping wasn't exciting, and my passion for the game fizzled.
All of this being said, I can understand why these design choices were made. I have developed games, and am familiar what it means to make a system that is optimal for your game. I'm sure Massive tested other methods of scaling, and shooting, et cetera, and I can hardly fault them for the product they released. Again, I believe that some parts of The Division are excellent - close to perfect, in some cases. The Dark Zone has proven to be amazing, and I have some fun stories with my friends that came out of experiences there. Again, NYC itself is amazing! I just don't really want to play it anymore.
Maybe I'll step away from it until the added content comes out, and give The Division another try; but, for now, I walk away from the game with a sigh. I'm sure there will be others who thoroughly enjoy this game, and I hope they love it! Me? I'm good. Thanks, but no thanks.