I think ND forgot what made Uncharted great - the set pieces and the shooting. The game only has 1 big set piece which is very disappointing. ND are believing in their own hype and moving away from that and the fantasy to be more story-focused. But get this, it does not have a great storyline. It's very basic. The amount of time you spend walking is ludicrous and that is being falsely passed on to us as a storyline. Also, without the big pieces, all we have is a lot of walking or traversal, puzzle and small shootouts which is very repetitive.

I fully expect ND to not be capable of doing anything more than just The Last of Us-y games now.

I loved the game and finished it on the hardest difficulty. Hands down the best game that I have played this generation!

Its my favourite Uncharted actually, i enjoyed it alot more than the others. I thought the ending movie was a let down tho.

IMO the first 9 chapters: 8/10. Long cutscenes, long chapters with very few shooting segments

Chapter 10-22: 9.5/10. Here is where it feels a true uncharted game.

I have been disappointed for 2 weeks now :) Still on chapter 12. Can't wait to play more. Less shooting is good for me, always thought there was a bit too much shooting in the previous games.
My growing complaint is that the puzzles are too damn easy, stop making every step so obvious.

It is my favorite Uncharted and I think it is better than TLOU. In fact it is now tied with MGS as my all time number 1. I really can't understand why people don't feel like they are playing a game until they are shooting people in the head. Is being a soldier about shooting people? Is being a police man?
Many of the early sections could just be cut scenes but they give you control over it... it is up to you to engage with the story in those parts as much or as little as you want. Maybe you were in too much of a hurry to shoot things and didn't savor the story!?
The story and themes are actually quite deep, the sub-narrative of the pirates and what happened to them is really great and the way you find out the horrors of their greed as you approach the end.
It is as deep as any novel, pick up To Kill A Mockingbird..... or any great book / film for that matter.

In my opinion the artists and writers etc working at ND are wasted on games, they should make high art.... paintings, books etc.

Uncharted/ games can be high art. its the people that have to start to appreciate it as such.

I did a long time ago :))

I disagree. It's not their best game, The Last of Us still holds that distinction, but it is better than the previous Uncharted games. Loved the story and pacing. The game really ramps up in the later chapters and is where it truly begins to shine.

I could not agree anymore with the OP. This game is even worse than U3. Uncharted 2 had the perfect balance between storyline and actual playable content.

It took Uncharted in a more human direction, and thematically, toning down the setpieces makes total sense. And in this case it makes for, bar none, the best paced game Naughty Dog has ever made. The pacing in 1 and 3 was pretty bad and in 2 it was decent, but here I never wanted to stop playing.

Plus, with setpieces comes a need to develop around them. They already jumped the shark in many ways with 3, and the last bit of story suffered with bullet sponge filler to make up for putting so much of the resources into the big setpieces. In 4 the game is longer AND better paced and balanced, which is almost unheard of for a fourth game in any series.