That's exactly it. There are too many vacuous "trend followers" that place all their faith in reviews, solely because of the simple fact that the reviewer was hired to a "big time" publication. "Oh, well gee. He/she wouldn't possibly have been hired to be a critic if he/she were fallible". I'm not saying that everyone should "rebel" against the mainstream, otherwise you get a million angsty teenagers wearing "I laugh because you're all the same" T-shirts. And more often than not, "mainstream" is good. I mean, everyone likes chocolate for a reason (except maybe those who are allergic to cocoa products). I'm just saying that people ought to try things for themselves once in a while.

People also need to understand that game reviewers have a hard time keeping their personal objections and subjections out of their reviews, and need to write a reviews from a more neutral standpoint. You don't give a D&D assignment to someone who's way into cyberpunk, or an action game to someone who prefers stealth and "covert/espionage" type stuff.

Read: Europeans always seem to have a problem with anything and everything. Canadians, too.

It's headed for a spring 2026 release. If all goes as planned that is. It might get released the same month that we for the first time are getting contact with an alien civilization.

I'll probably duck out for now. I think this aspect is what's bugging me more than anything else. I hate staggered releases in general, but the fact that this one affects me is even more annoying.

The other thing which is really annoying me is that few of the reviews I've seen are actual reviews. Which means that I can't count on them to decided whether to ask Valve for a refund while I can get one. (For those unaware, you can get a refund for a preorder provided that you ask before the game is released)

Well you already played two chapter of the full game (aka the demo), add some platforming and some turret section and that's basically the game, and there are tons of game play videos out there, you could watch the first hour or so of the game it should give you a good idea to decide whenever you want to keep your pre-order or not without needing any review.

Just finished it and can honestly say as a fan of shooters and the original duke this is pretty disappointing. Think along the lines of unreal 2 and doom 3 and it's pretty much the same a very average games with a few good levels and a lot of crap/tedious ones. The jokes, enemies and gameplay are pretty much the same as the original with no real improvements other than a better game engine and some new one liners which are mostly pinched from movies. I would honestly say giving it 3 out of 5 is being generous.

Last time i buy a game without waiting for the reviews, wish i'd bought the witcher 2 now.

Doom and Quake 1 have large single player campaigns and are faster than Quake 3. :)

I think it's it's just easier to notice and voice criticisms, it's also easy to go into a thread and just agree with people, being the one to go against that can be tiring because you need to then defend it a lot more. Most people probably don't feel strongly enough about it to go somewhere and talk about it.

Personally I like it, I have a fair number of criticisms for it but then I wouldn't have those criticisms if I hadn't enjoyed it enough to play it all the way through. I don't think DNF is a very good shooter but it certainly has its moments and it entertained me.

???

Doom3 is a good FPS. Just not Doom.

I liked the demo. I've been avoiding the videos because of possible spoilers. The puzzles were pretty straightforward, so I'm guessing that the rest of the puzzles are similar. So it's less about that than it is about wanting to play through and experience things for myself.

From what I gather it sounds like the demo is actually fairly representative of the rest of the game. If that's a reasonable statement then I don't need to see anything more because I liked what I saw. Performance wasn't as good as it should be on my rig, but if I do some performance tuning I should be able to get it running well. As I more than meet the minimum specs and just barely miss the recommended video card spec.

Now, that I've typed that, I think that perhaps to an extent I'm being a little unreasonable. A review is going to reveal some of that stuff, I'm just wanting to avoid the case where I'm watching large tracts of game play. It's a bitch some times having an eidetic memory because once I see it I can't just unsee it.

Bah, if you think Doom3/Unreal 2 were bad then you have no taste, or your expectations are set too high. Not every game has to be a blockbuster innovator you know. And linear also does not always have to equal crap, as sometimes linear games can be quite fun.

It's Duke, not some plot heavy RPG : Aliens attack, Duke fight aliens, here I spoiled the whole game plot to you :)

Watching a video of the first hour or so of gameplay is not going to spoil you anything, heck you had a lot more of spoiler watching the trailers.

Agreed....so was Unreal 2....Unreal Tournament sucked balls though for not having SP mode.
Don't be so crass, pal. Some count gameplay vids as spoilers, you know.

I never suggested him to watch the whole game on youtube, just the first hour or less for him to decide whenever he liked it or not.

To some even that is too much. :P

Plus he already said he liked the demo and will probably like the game.

Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you. But, considering how long this game has been in development, I want to experience as much of it as possible. Sort of like that ride towards the end of the Demo with the Indy inspiration.

And if it's really as railroady as people are suggesting then I really don't want to watch somebody else play through.