I really liked Act I. My order thus far would be:

Act IV>>>>Act I>Act III>>>>Act II. I think I'm near the end of the game. I just shut down GW, watched the Naomi video (God, Snake should have capped that bitch...), and Otacon woke me up right when I shut off the console. How close am I to the end? I heard this game drags on for awhile.

I really loved Act IV but I can't say Act V is impressing me that much. I loved the actual gameplay in Act I the most, though. I liked all the options to finish it however I pleased.

You're analogy is invalidated by the fact that you always refer to MGS titles as "games" rather than interactive movies. As such it is purely the gameplay that it should be judged by with the cutscenes being a nice bonus albeit skippable to those who do not enjoy them.

If you disliked the preachy dialogue at the end of SoL than you probably won't think better of MGS4, though I think some issues aside the ending (or at least the dialogue) was brilliant perhaps even surpassing the deeply thought provoking narrative of MGS2.

Game, interactive movie, marionette show, whatever... I didn't mention cutscene length once. I mentioned dialogue, plot holes, and bad acting... I'm pretty sure those apply to anything from theatre to video games to cinema. Let's not dance around its faults by trying to pigeonhole it into its own special category.

And again, I find nothing in MGS4 thought-provoking... A little subtlety would go a loooong way. For example, you don't need to tell me that there was no "wolf" in the Crying Wolf story... I'm not a fucking moron, thanks. That was heavily implied without an explanation. The same applies to the other beast stories. They also don't need to tell me four times in three minutes how "control" works in that Otacon/Snake cutscene... Again, not a moron. I figured it out, thanks. This kind of crap happens throughout the game and drags on cutscenes far longer than any intelligent person wants to bear. Once the cutscene stops being informative in any way, it's past its welcome and should be condensed. Kojima is a beautiful cinematographer and has a real knack for presentation but a good storyteller, he is not. He indulges himself far too often and drags scenes on for eternity.

Those kinds of scenes remove all thought from the MGS series. Thought involves actually being asked by the creator to consider what is happening. When the creator tells you everything, you don't have to think. It's laid out on the table for every English speaking adult with an IQ over 40 to understand.

@ rocketpig, you have complained in the past about games and films being designed for idiots... and I do agree, and in the game, there are certainly cut-scenes which are much longer than they need to be because they need to explain everything 5 times. However, there have been some where I have slightly lost concentration, and been slightly confused afterwards

I bet this would happen far less often if Kojima didn't lose your attention by explaining the same thing four times before moving on to a new point that you might miss because you stopped listening.

After all, that's a storyteller's job, right? I thought engaging the audience and maintaining their undivided attention was paramount in every good storyteller's mind.

Precisely, though I do like to multitask, and I am easily distracted, so I think I was posting in a thread while watching the cut-scene, so it is not entirely kojima's fault

So rocket pig?

Were you impressed? Was MGS4 better than what you expect it to be? Or worst?

Overall I'm pretty damned impressed. The storyline holes, dialogue, cutscene length, etc. were all things I expected going into the game. I still think they suck but it's like going to the dentist not expecting pain... In the case of MGS4, I'm there for the lollipop afterwards.

And that lollipop delivers. Kojima's little touches are brilliant (the egg scenes, MGS1 intro, "Otacon, get a grip on yourself!", etc. are always enjoyable) and the presentation is unrivaled in videogames IMO. The gameplay is massively improved, too. The controls are finally where they should be and the diversity in gameplay (W00t Metal Gear Rex FTW!) is a welcome addition to the game.

PS. They took both of Raiden's arms. That made me smile. A lot. God, I hate that guy. 

What did you think of the ending?

I am at the ending....waiting till tonight to watch the ending though.