I'm hoping this will be just like the first Assassin's Creed. Excellent core mechanics, but little in the way of variety or story, roundly criticised (and justifiably so). Then the sequel fixes all the problems and is universally lauded.

I also have high hopes for the sequel and what happens before the sequel. This metacritic crap might be good for Bungie in the long run. A straight trajectory to World Domination is boring. I don't find all the criticisms fair, but many are. I'm willing to bet there are a lot of people in the studio who had the same criticisms before a single review was published, and plans were already in place to address them. This time the narrative is "the most expensive game ever is disappointing." That sets the stage for the narrative next time, which we can hope is "Bungie makes good on Destiny's promise."

This post feels disingenuous. Reviewers aren't "confused". They just don't like the game. Every negative review details unremarkable enemy design, bullet sponge boss encounters, repetitive missions and unengaging story. All of those are failing as an FPS.

Solid core mechanics can only take a game so far if it doesn't engage the player in interesting encounters or make the player feel invested in the story.

Geez, you keep saying EVERY negative review. Have you read them all? MANY negative reviews that I've read talk about how it's not what they expected, and what they expected is not what I expected. Who's wrong?

Every negative review I read, I should clarify, which were a handful of them from big sites like Polygon and Giant Bomb. They all said generally the same thing. Polygon even did a joint review from two different perspectives.

I've seen reviewers who completely contradict each other or even themselves in the same review.

It's not like subjectivity can be banished and expectations have no affect in the evaluation of the game. I sense an eagerness to take Bungie down a peg or two. I've seen the same thing happen with many successful artists. When a flaw can be found, it's magnified.

Even before the beta or final game came out, I saw some critics ready to dismiss it. Mass market shooter, nothing special. We can both keep pretending that the reviewers who agree with us are the objective ones who get it right, but the truth is we both could be overlooking the game's strengths or faults.

I'm sure there are lots of folks out there looking to be negative, but you don't get a metacritic score like that just from a few salty folks with a bone to pick. Pointing to those major review sites again, lots of folks seem to just be plain disappointed and underwhelmed.

I bet you this, though. If this game came out of left field, or if Activision had not yakked so much about the supposed half a billion figure, I think the reviews would be better. Expectation is a MF.

True, but it's hard to escape expectations with " Bungie" on the label.

I'm hoping this will be just like the first Assassin's Creed. Excellent core mechanics, but little in the way of variety or story, roundly criticised (and justifiably so). Then the sequel fixes all the problems and is universally lauded.

I'm not going to try and dissuade you since you are having fun with the game, but Phogoth is absolutely tedious. The best strategy is to keep killing spawns until they stop spawning (which they will do after 7 or 8 waves or something or the other) at which point you're left with nothing to do but fire off rounds until he turns towards you, duck behind a pillar, reload, duck back out again. Rinse, repeat, ad nauseum. It took my first strike team more than 5 minutes of continuous bullet sponge after we cleared all the spawns.

I would add also that virtually every strike boss plays out this exact same kill the adds then play hide and seek behind a pillar until a massive health pool is whittled away scenario. I find this to be very tedious.

Why don't you just forget the "best strategy" and get at it? Wouldn't that be fun, and challenging?

Maybe it takes a long time to kill the boss, but if the entire rest of the experience feels like one long Firefight, I'm so in.

Friend, you don't even know. You've got joy headed your way. Truly.

Different strokes I guess. However, personally, a game where every boss fight essentially has the same strategy makes those fights boring fast.
The main problem with Destiny is that there is no variety, which leads to repetitive expirience.

The raid will blow your mind then.

Different strokes I guess. However, personally, a game where every boss fight essentially has the same strategy makes those fights boring fast. So it is a test of patience, esecially when those fights can lost 15 or more minutes of bullet sponging action depending on the difficulty.

The main problem with Destiny is that there is no variety, which leads to repetitive expirience.

Heh. Fair enough. Doesn't apply to my run-through so far (I don't think I've used the same strategy more than once or twice, unless you call "kill the boss and finish the level" a strategy), but if that's how you're seeing it, I guess I understand your frustration.

I guess I look back at Halo, a game I've put (according to LegacyStats) 128 days of playtime into over the past 14 years, and I realize that I killed an awful lot of elites with the PP/precision weapon combo, I killed a boatload of flood with shotguns, and so on. I employed strategies that carried on through 6 different games and were used hundreds of thousands of times, to the point where I hardly even need to think about them... and to this day they haven't gotten old. The idea that I'd get bored of whatever new strategies I've come up with for Destiny, in the 8 hours I've managed to put into it so far, seems ludicrous to me.

The bottom line, for me: I don't find the gameplay boring or repetitive. I guess you do. I'm sorry (not because I'm responsible for the repetitiveness, but out of empathy for your lack of fun).

This post feels disingenuous. Reviewers aren't "confused". They just don't like the game. Every negative review details unremarkable enemy design, bullet sponge boss encounters, repetitive missions and unengaging story. All of those are failing as an FPS.

Solid core mechanics can only take a game so far if it doesn't engage the player in interesting encounters or make the player feel invested in the story.

Geez, you keep saying EVERY negative review. Have you read them all? MANY negative reviews that I've read talk about how it's not what they expected, and what they expected is not what I expected. Who's wrong?

I've seen reviewers who completely contradict each other or even themselves in the same review.

It's not like subjectivity can be banished and expectations have no affect in the evaluation of the game. I sense an eagerness to take Bungie down a peg or two. I've seen the same thing happen with many successful artists. When a flaw can be found, it's magnified.

Even before the beta or final game came out, I saw some critics ready to dismiss it. Mass market shooter, nothing special. We can both keep pretending that the reviewers who agree with us are the objective ones who get it right, but the truth is we both could be overlooking the game's strengths or faults.

I bet you this, though. If this game came out of left field, or if Activision had not yakked so much about the supposed half a billion figure, I think the reviews would be better. Expectation is a MF.

A reviewer is confused if they say this, " We were expecting a true next-gen MMO, but Destiny lacks the requirements for accomplishing that goal."

That's just one line. Every review I've read criticizes its merits as an FPS. Polygon even did a joint review with with one reviewer coming from an FPS perspective and the other from an MMO perspective. Both had basically the same opinion of the game.

The story isn't great, but it isn't nearly as repetitive as some are making it out to be. The strikes are incredibly repetitive, but not moreso than Halo's Fire fight mode. I would have love more dynamic gameplay, but honestly, compared to other grade A FPS's this game has a lot to it. The PVP alone is a wonderfully fun experience.

My main point is this, if you come to this game with MMO expectations you will be disappointed. Lot's of reviewers were confused with what genre this game was in. Bungie repeatedly said, "It's not an MMO." If you are a reviewer, comparing this to other MMO's, you clearly missed something. Some of the reviews are very confused in my opinion. Is Destiny a 9 or 10, possibly, maybe 8 is more justifiable. But the 6's and 7's are ridiculous to me when you compare this game to what is on the market for FPS's.

Is the story repetitive across all the locations? I didn't think so personally. The first time I said, wow, this is repetitive was after I was doing the strike playlist (3-4 runs of most strikes had happened). But, what do strikes compare to? Firefight. How do strikes compare to Halo's fire fight? They are waaaaaaay more dynamic than that, not at all repetitive like Fire Fight is, yet... People LOVE fire fight. There is definitely confusion somewhere.

I'm not buying the argument that if reviewers weren't confused, they'd like it more.

There are plenty of reasons to give it a 6 or 7 on its merits as a shooter alone, and the lackluster MMO trappings don't do enough to make up for those shortcomings. If you like the story missions, great, but lots of reviewers found the cycle of "hack objective->fight waves of enemies->go to next objective" repetitive, encounter and enemy design lacking, and the story underdeveloped and failing to lend gravitas to events.

The main problem with Destiny is that there is no variety, which leads to repetitive expirience.

Ultimately I'm glad you're having fun with it and I'm disappointed I'm not experiencing the same thing, because lord knows I was anticipating having a lot of fun with this one.

They're not a test of patience; you can't wait them out, you can't find a safe sniping place and just plink at them until they're dead.

You can't no, but the patterns are simple. Once you get it down, you end up repeating everything over and over. The Nexus strike is the worst. The boss will sit there, and fire at you. You and your team take turns ducking out and firing. When the enemies materialize, you use your supers to take them out. Once dead, you continue firing on the boss. It is easy, but takes a long time.

Once you master this, the fight become boring. You've already proven you can survive for 2 minutes, so why drag it out to 7 or 8 or more?

Imagine having to punch Regret 200 times instead of 20. At some point, the player has simply proven they are skilled enough.

So here's a place we simply will never agree.

There is NO similarity at all, in my mind, between the Phogoth battle and the Regret one. NONE. One was tedious (Regret), no matter what difficulty you played it on or who was with you. The other has been a blast twice, and I can certainly see myself going back and doing it again, multiple times.

I guess the point is that having fun with the game isn't contingent on what preconceived notions someone may have about what genre it fits into. People are aware of whether they are enjoying themselves or not. I am very clear about the shared-world-shooter classification of the game and what bits and pieces that the game has cobbled together from various other genres in an attempt to carve out a new genre it entails. In spite of this awareness, I am so bored of the game that I can't even motivate myself to attempt the last couple strikes that I haven't tried.

If I had gone into the experience thinking it was an MMO but allowed someone to explain to me that I was actually playing a shared world shooter, I don't think I would suddenly go "well then, now that I know that I'm having lots of fun!"

But that's not the point of what he's saying. Go read the reviews. Very few say they are bored, many even say the combat is great and the PvP is good, but they expected "more". This is not a matter of them having fun or not it's a matter of them expecting more because of a misunderstanding about the game. Also you may not be aware of this but there are a ton of people who are having fun, for example: every one of my game playing friends is playing it like crazy and I am the only diehard Bungie fan among them. Which is why I believe so many people are trying to figure out how it got such bad reviews. When you have as much fun with a game as many of us are it's baffling to us how it could get a 6 out of 10 when much less fun games get at least an 8 out of 10 for being an average game.

If I had gone into the experience thinking it was an MMO but allowed someone to explain to me that I was actually playing a shared world shooter, I don't think I would suddenly go "well then, now that I know that I'm having lots of fun!"

It became much more exciting and fun once we got out and moved around.

Imagine having to punch Regret 200 times instead of 20. At some point, the player has simply proven they are skilled enough.

Gotta prove that your sword-flying skills are consistent.

They're not a test of patience; you can't wait them out, you can't find a safe sniping place and just plink at them until they're dead.

You can't no, but the patterns are simple. Once you get it down, you end up repeating everything over and over. The Nexus strike is the worst. The boss will sit there, and fire at you. You and your team take turns ducking out and firing. When the enemies materialize, you use your supers to take them out. Once dead, you continue firing on the boss. It is easy, but takes a long time.

Once you master this, the fight become boring. You've already proven you can survive for 2 minutes, so why drag it out to 7 or 8 or more?

Imagine having to punch Regret 200 times instead of 20. At some point, the player has simply proven they are skilled enough.

We also tried hiding in the doorway that leads in, but Bungie knew there would be people like us who would try that, and bam, endless supply of Wizards and Knights and floaty death within the room itself.

Sure, there's a boring bullet-sponge experience of killing off the tiny guys before taking on the big guy, but sometimes it's just more fun challenging yourself and seeing how much Phogoth can really take. Same with Sepiks. It's fun watching people run up and melee or blade dance these guys and survive. It's fun trying to confuse the AI. It's also fun trying to land on Phogoth's head to unload on him from above, though I can't say I've had much success with that. :P