Why the bad reviews??

[Old97]

Defiance [the game] received pretty mediocre reviews from most everybody, as far as I can tell.

I find IGN reviews to be some of the most honest on the Internet. If you're a fanboy and they clobber your favorite game, yes, you might be upset. I understand that. But I have been reading them for years and find them pretty reliable.

IMO the best review so far has been by Eurogamer, which is a site that I also rely on to be pretty honest. They said the game was fun and addictive, but lacked content and was very much like a conglomeration of other games...which, in fact, it is. EGO form Halo, and most everything else from Borderlands. Like it or not, that is the simple, stark truth. They even have the weapons level color from BL.

Having said all of that, I still enjoy the game a lot, and hope that Trion will continue to update this game and add some cool new content through DLC. I will not pass a final judgement on Defiance, as it's only been a couple of [rough] weeks since the release. I will wait and see if Trion is serious about supporting and growing this game. It was a unique and interesting attempt at an MMO shooter on consoles, so I am willing to be patient and cut Trion some slack.

[Dodece]

Most reviewers have deadpanned the game. Which in all honesty they were right to do so. There is nothing here that is actually all that good, and nothing that actually qualifies as great. This game is basically all quantity, no quality, and very little substance. If you had even bothered to watch the IGN review with a open mind. It wasn't even the glitches the reviewer took issue with. They gave the developer a pass saying those would be sorted out. No the real issue that had was with the repetitive uninspired nature of the way the game itself plays.

Whether you like it or not that is a indisputable fact. This game has us doing the same things over and over and over again for no real rewards. This has been pointed out constantly on these forums. People point it out constantly in game. This game is all of two weeks old, and most of us are grinding the end game. A testament to how little diversion is actually available. The best thing that can be said about the game is that it gives us a taste of a genre on consoles that we almost never get to taste. It was worth playing the game for that, but as far as the genre is concerned this game will be a blip on the radar without a major redesign thee sooner the better.

[LALLY]

Most reviewers have deadpanned the game. Which in all honesty they were right to do so. There is nothing here that is actually all that good, and nothing that actually qualifies as great. This game is basically all quantity, no quality, and very little substance. If you had even bothered to watch the IGN review with a open mind. It wasn't even the glitches the reviewer took issue with. They gave the developer a pass saying those would be sorted out. No the real issue that had was with the repetitive uninspired nature of the way the game itself plays.

Whether you like it or not that is a indisputable fact. This game has us doing the same things over and over and over again for no real rewards. This has been pointed out constantly on these forums. People point it out constantly in game. This game is all of two weeks old, and most of us are grinding the end game. A testament to how little diversion is actually available. The best thing that can be said about the game is that it gives us a taste of a genre on consoles that we almost never get to taste. It was worth playing the game for that, but as far as the genre is concerned this game will be a blip on the radar without a major redesign thee sooner the better.

good post, I agree with you on everything to be honest, I think defiance has definitely given us a taste of what the future of console gaming will be, generally mmo's in my opinion, they just missed out on the most basic aspects on what make these games fun....I mean, just have the text chat constantly open! its an mmo! its such a simple aspect they have and still are ignoring

[dlCHIEF58]

IGN is just horrible and biased on reviews, I typically only read them to see how uninformed their writer is. They either rate something way too high if it is a popular franchise or needlessly bash something and give it a lower score than it deserves for some nitpicky reason. They have gotten slightly better of late, but many of their reviewers are still awful and overly biased. I think a lot of times they do it on purpose just to generate flame wars and web page hits.

All that being said, while the score was a little low some of the critiques were valid - unlike their initial impressions where they complain about basic things that the game would have told them if they weren't to busy listening to their own BS and had actually paid attention to the game dialog instead. But it is still a fun game with lots of potential and worth sticking around to see how they improve it.

[CharmCitysKing]

I'm not normally one to start threads but im really annoyed with the bad reviews 1 case is IGN they gave it 5.5!! nearly all the comments afterwards said this is way too low and should be 7.5-8 which i think is more the mark,its this mindless reviewing that could put people off buying a great game and joining something big and if you read the review alot of the time this games being put into contrast to the likes of wow and swtor (but no mention of how many bugs they had on starting) and comments like "this is not what i like" these people are not paid to tell us what they like and dislike but to give fair reviews!! in my view trion are doing a great job and long may it last, ok that's my rant over

because the game sucks. its bland, boring and doesnt have any thing going for it. After you complete all the misssions and side missions and time trials and all those, there is absolutly nothing to do. And if your like me, Im not wasting 4 hours doing arkfalls over and over and over again just for some **** loot. and the coop instances are a waste. the boss doesnt even give u loot either. this game doesnt have the slightest of a chance. It aint no Cod, it aint no halo, and it sure as hell aint no WoW or Borderlands. Not even close. Its a FLOP. and to those defending this game are in such bad denial its pathetic

[Yukmout]

IGN gives COD 9.5/10 - 10/10 ... That should be your benchmark on how useless those people are.

[Yukmout]

because the game sucks. its bland, boring and doesnt have any thing going for it. After you complete all the misssions and side missions and time trials and all those, there is absolutly nothing to do. And if your like me, Im not wasting 4 hours doing arkfalls over and over and over again just for some **** loot. and the coop instances are a waste. the boss doesnt even give u loot either. this game doesnt have the slightest of a chance. It aint no Cod, it aint no halo, and it sure as hell aint no WoW or Borderlands. Not even close. Its a FLOP. and to those defending this game are in such bad denial its pathetic

When you quit can you quit the forums too cuz no one cares that you dont want to do arkfalls for 4 hours. Thats the game, if you dont like it then please erase the forums from your bookmarks. LOL @ "It aint no COD" ... You should join the IGN team.

Btw, Wasting time grinding for levels is quite the contradiction. What time are you wasting while you're gaining something ? GG n CYA later.

[RLStroud]

IGN gives COD 9.5/10 - 10/10 ... That should be your benchmark on how useless those people are.

Haha, this is my exact stance as well. They rate 100% on flashiness and polish and put little effort into rating anything else in many cases. Also much like restaurants get extra credit on their sanitation grade if they do certain things (that's why you see some places with 101.5 etc) I think IGN gives extra points to any game that has Call of Duty in the title. If this was called Call of Duty: Defiance it would get at least a 9.5 lol.

[Frantic84]

Come on you guys, those who like it, like it those who don't, don't.

I must say i liked the game in the beginning and it still has great potential but i also have to say I've been bored the last 3 times i played it. The game just isnt rewarding enough.

[Tactica]

It's an MMO that lacks the RPG... the killing over and over is becoming mindless and repetative.

The weapons and 'loot' are very bland. There's very little unique or interesting about the feeling of the weapons. They all just shoot. What makes the RPG side of the MMORPGs so unique is the feeling of different classes and abilities and powers in how you perform combat. In Defiance, everyone fights the same way. You pick up a gun and shoot. Although there are different guns and they have Nano effects... and rockets and snipers are different from one another... they all still shoot.

There are mods, frankly, the mods are pretty weak, and they make very little difference unless you really did into the Synergy effects and by the time you spend investing in all that... the gun levels up fast, and you find that you have a usless gun for leveling your skill up further, LOL... so... right... why bother until you are max skill level?

At the end of the day, the concept of a healer vs. a tank vs. a damage dealer... etc... is missing. The value of distinguishing between each and having each on the battlefield is missing in Definance. Not that it's needed, but difference between the special powers and their abilities influencing the battle just aren't significant enough. Like the Siren in Borderlands2 , that was a significant ability... and you could even augment those abilities to great effect... that was part of what made that title successful.... or like in shadowrun, the ability to drop the magic healing trees in battle, teleport across the field throgh walls... oh teleport would be so nice... and a gust ability to force enemies away from you as a defence or offensive ability to compliment the weapons... There's also not enough unique variety between powers to keep them an active part of the game.

Yeah, there's a lot of rinse and repeat right now. Far too much once you've made it through the main / episode missions.

I'm not sure what I expected. It was fun to move through the story. I enjoyed that part (except the main boss fights of Jackleg and Nim), even though I felt the story a bit disjointed at times and broken. I was not a fan of most of the characters... or that the 'evil guy' was an old white guy and all the 'good protagonists' were all the aliens, but hey... whatever, it's their fiction.

However at this point... it feels like the game is now just rinse and repeat grinding... scavenge hunts for the same nonsense... and to what end, for hats, titles and loot that does the same thing the last loot did... and just so I can wear it out quickly?

Meh... I can only play the same co-op missions so many times. I can only go find and kill another hellbug or 99r so many times before this game gets traded.

The 'rewards' expiring constantly in this game are a big turn off for me. The rewards not really being very good rewards at all are also problematic.... there's a big missing 'value to loot' in the game. Even the Oranges are kinda 'meh' so far.

Right now, I'm still enjoying the world enough to keep playing, but more from a social perspective than anything else... but that's going to quickly wear off too. I can already tell, its happening....

I'm hopeful the DLC comes fast... I hope they infuse the game with new interesting content... but i'm quite fearful that's not going to be enough. There's a lack of a big portion of the puzzle here. They are missing some pretty big key concepts to make a long lasting mmo-RPG.

The 1) specializing party forming classes, 2) customizing super powers based system and 3) long lasting super rewards of that RPG element seems to all be large key components to succesful long lasting MMOs... so, i'm curious how they plan to overcome it in Defiance.

Folks may say, meh, the haters gonna hate, let folks walk... but the first part of MMO is Massive... the second is Multiplayer... if you don't have a great adoption rate of those first two, the online game dies. So, the days are counting for this thing to take off like gang busters, and developers know it. Adoption needs to be a huge success and soon.

Sadly, I fear the worst. I think they had a good idea, but I think some less than ideal game design / business decisions have been made along the way.

It will be interesting to see where the experiement goes from here.