It's interesting that in this thread that is supposedly about how MGS4 is the best game ever, not a single person has said anything about how the actual GAMEPLAY is.

A story does not a videogame make.

@ksv : of course the gameplay is among the greatest, that's what makes a game. Ever heard about Kojima ? I talked about epic boss battles by the way. But it has to be experienced to know what we're talking about... Kojima reinvents the game in every chapter actually, from giant robot fights to stealth action and from crazy car chases to the final one on one.

I found both Uncharteds to be better than MGS4 actually.  MGS4 I can see getting its following, particularly among people who are desperate for a game that feels like a movie.

And yes, people generally don't discuss how the gameplay is in MGS4 when they rave about it.  MSG4 has good controls (not great, but good), but they are also on the stiff side.  I found Uncharted, for example, to control better.  This goes for running, and also jumping and shooting.  Also, the storytelling is in there, but not monsterously long cut scenes.

I have this feeling that there is a need to hype up MGS4 more than it is, because it is a PS3 exclusive, and is raised as ammo in a system war between fanboys.

Never played the newest MGS game. I like both styles that the MG series has done, but is this more of a run and gun kind of approach or stealth?

Already knew about this

I fell asleep a couple of times during the game...and had dreams of how much MGS3 and 1 were better than MGS4.

@CGI-quality

did you ever play the first 3 before? Or did you play MGS4 first?

Praise as "Best game ever"?  If the discussion were limited to being "one of the best games this generation" or said to be a AAA title, I wouldn't being jumping into this.  But people, for the fact that MGS4 goes overboard in trying to be like a movie, end up saying "Best game eva".  That, at it is currently the most notable PS3 exclusive. 

My take on the execution is as follows:

1. The controls weren't great. 

2. The cut scenes were OBSCENELY long.  One spent nearly as long watching as they did playing.  Throw in also enduring long installs of game content to the hard drive.

3. For something spent being watched, it wouldn't even stand up to the best of film making.

4. The storyline was confusing and hard to follow, unless you were a fan of the series, and knew the backstory.  I could also go on, if you wanted a critical analysis of the MGS4 storyline, like one does movie, and go into detail on how absurd the war economy concept was.  And other things, like consciousness of one entity taking over another person via the grafting of an arm to the other person.  MGS4 has a bunch of these absurdities.  If you want to limited it to being judged as a game, then one can look away, but people here have said that MGS4 was even better than the best movies every made.  They hype meter is off the hook in regards to this.

I do contrast this to Uncharted, which also pushed for the movie-like experience, but worked better as a movie, particularly Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

For this generation, I found these to be superior GAMES to MGS4:

* inFAMOUS

* Uncharted 1 and 2

* Bioshock

Mass Effect comes even closer for me, except the Mako handled like garbage in it. 

I would put MGS4 on par with Modern Warfare 2 for single-player experience, as far as story goes.

@disolitude : then maybe you should go back to Halo 3.

One of the Best Games ever made!