I did like the game, even though I'm slightly disappointed at the ending. Does it deserve 10's? That's up to the reviewers. I would've given it a 9 because, as much as a MGS fanboy as I am, this game still has some faults.
First and foremost, the FOB. It's a nice idea in paper to have other players invade your base. The problem is that it's tacked on as mandatory even if you want no part of it. Worst part, you lose your main base soldiers because of it. Don't let anyone else tell you the contrary. I've lost S ranked staff from my Combat and other units? That S ranked soldier you worked your ass off trying to get and you don't have any more Direct Contracts to give him? BAM, you lost him to some idiot online. At least I've beefed up the security and the base managed to defend by itself while I'm away. Speaking about defending, how am I supposed to defend the base if I'm offline? Overall, the FOB system feels tacked on to seduce players into buying MB Points. "Hey guys, we have the new FOB system! We let you have FOBs, but guess what, you either play it or you play it; You can't opt out of them. Why? Because we want you to look at our attractive MB Points and buy them! Hope you build more FOBs!". As much as I don't want to go online, I have to because I want to increase the size and level of my units. This is possibly the biggest fuck-up of the game with the glitches
I'm baffled on how a blueprint can get glitched due to someone dying, restarting or exiting a mission. For me, the Stun Grenade and the Bullhammer shotgun are the only ones glitched for me. I have them and developed them to the max, but I don't have them on the documentation. I hope this has a fix, since Konami said they would fix it.
Story feels quite disjointed from the MGS timeline. Skullface motives for revenge weren't that good and the character lacked background, but the means to do his vengeance were creative. I liked the concept of the story where I was the main character the whole time, but it felt like one of those Shyamalan twists. What happened with Eli and the Sahelantropous he stole? Is Big Boss going to just stand there with his arms crossed? What happened with the real Big Boss afterwards? So many plotholes which I believe are going to stay incomplete with Konami apparently abandoning the franchise. While the story felt incomplete and slightly weaker, I look back to MGS2 and 3, and I'm kinda glad cutscenes were shorter and to-the-point this time. But I wished for more meat and content on the story itself. I also get that Kojima wasn't that interested on going on with this series.
The gameplay is AWESOME, and it feels like Peace Walker, and I like that. I liked the mech fights as they were more realistic this time. Thankfully, there weren't 72 soldiers crammed inside a red tank this time. I would've preferred this game had a Co-op like Peace Walker, where people could take on mechs and high ranked soldiers, either blowing them up to hell or capturing them into Mother Base.
I know I'm inevitably going to bitch about Metal Gear Online. I kinda liked what I've seen from the footage at TGS, but I also noticed a lot of lag, and that's one of the main problems the last one had. It's obvious that the best players are going to choose the Infiltrator class the most and exploit the shit out of it.
I can't believe I complained so much about this game. But nearly 200 hours of play, all S ranked missions and 80% of completion indicate that I still like it and I might play 200 hours more.
