Just in case you guys didn't have enough.
My thoughts on the game were... it's decent. Maybe something I'd buy, or get for christmas. However, Gears 2 and Fallout 3 right now prevent me from giving it the time it deserves.
I had a great experience when 3 buddies and myself tried (and repeatedly failed) to beat the game on expert. Even the times we fucked up and got completely wiped out were hilarious. On the other hand... every single pick-up group I played in either had a teamkiller, someone who hoarded all the health and let everyone else die, people who have flat-out refused to help me up, or just people who refused to work together, ran off to play Apocalypse Cowboy, and got everyone killed by shooting a car or pissing off a Witch. Not fun.
The game itself felt easy on every difficulty up until Expert, where it suddenly bent me over and violated me in ways I had never thought possible. Tanks on Expert are hell... we never figured out a way to kill one without losing at least one guy. Maybe if we'd had pipe bombs... The other bosses all went down pretty easily, the Witch was an issue until we figured out a way to beat her - stand in a line like a firing squad, get someone to toss a Molotov on her, then just make it rain bullets. Boomers are annoying as hell, and the AI director should know better than to spawn them in small, enclosed areas. Bad AI Director.
This would be a good time to say the AI Director, at least to me, feels like it failed to deliver. All it seems to have done is changed around which bosses spawn, where the horde shows up, and where weapon dumps are. This is all fine and good, but there seem to be maybe a dozen noticeably different combinations that it's used at most (changing one boss from a hunter to a smoker does not a difference make). So replayability is spotty at best. The reason games like TF2 are so replayable is because the human mind can think up infinite different ways to play such a game, and when you get up to 30 people together playing, no game plays out the same way twice, ever. The AI Director tries, to be sure, but I feel like the game will maybe last a month or so before the Director completely runs out of ideas and is just throwing stuff at me that I've seen before. Versus mode, however, might alleviate this somewhat. We'll see.
The weapons are nice... auto shotty feels a little overpowered, hunting rifle a little underpowered. Maybe it's just me, but taking a precision, high powered gun with a slow firing rate into an area with hordes of fast but weak dudes waiting to kick your ass seems stupid... maybe that's how you kill the tank, now that I think about it.
The zombies are good enemies, I like how theyre portrayed more as 28 days later than Night of the Living Dead... it makes for a more frantic, fun game where teamwork is so much more key. People aren't kidding... Expert requires precision teamwork to survive, which I fucking adore. In most multiplayer games, teamwork consists of "Medics heal, protect the flag/oddball guy, kill the other dudes." The only issue I have is mentioned above - because teamwork is so key, asshats and teamkillers have so much more potential to ruin the game, and unfortunately, they already are. A functioning headset is also critical.
So, there you go - if you are fairly confident you will always have three or more friends to play with, I wholeheartedly recommend this. If you can get seven, I predict Versus mode will be one of the greatest things ever. However, if you're hoping to just play pickup groups with random internet people, I wouldn't recommend it. You will only be disappointed and frustrated.
VERDICT: BUY IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS.
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