ddickinson: I did also consider the Far Cry gams, but I have heard and seen some bad parts of those games that would put me off, like terrible re-spawning enemies, etc.
Far Cry 2 is notorious for re-spawning enemies, but I personally didn't think it was too bad. The world is huge, and without re-spawning enemies, I think it would have gotten really boring (much more boring than it already is :-)) I am definitely in the minority with that opinion though, just saying...
The two Far Cry games are wildly different. Different developers, unrelated stories, different problems and annoyances. The first game is more of a "large, but still level-based world", while the second is truly "open world."