Wherein I talk about everything but the ending

It's like an art student's orgasm

I finished Borderlands last night.

At first I was a little irked by how short it was seemed but Steam's log quickly showed that I had played almost 25 hours (WTF?!).

So what did I think of the game?

The Good

Visually the game is brilliant. The cel shaded style supports the game's tone of black humour and causal murder, and helps distant it from people screaming about it being a Fallout ripoff (not enough though).

Much to my surprise I really enjoyed the loot. In most circumstances I don't see the appeal in paying much attention to your character's gear and whenever someone starts bragging about their virtual weapons I'm like 'whatever fag/noob/commie/humorously-irrelevant-demographic.'
But not in Borderlands. With a disregard for sensibility and a love of fun, the game contains hundreds guns that run on pure awesome such as the shotgun that fires rockets, acid shooting machine pistols, 5 missile burst launchers and revolvers that have shotgun-spray.

Patricia Tannis. There's always a place for well done crazy people.

The Bad

The gameplay, although fun, is repetitive, easy and linear.

The missions are all MMO staples like kill 10 rats, which are just tolerable in MMO's because you are working towards a long term goal in an existing community.

Dying is just a slap on the wrist with a percentage reduction of your cash. But this is okay as horribly punishing deaths would take away from the casual fun nature of the game. What isn't okay is that as you the player get stronger the enemies go from challenges to speedbumps. It's a design that allows people who aren't doing well from being unable to progress but it also means that people who are doing well get rewarded with...no challenges.

Linear probably isn't the best choice of words; the game is an open world to an extent. Closed, empty or futile could also describe the situation. Like many other open worlds there is nothing to do in apart plot and side missions so the world turns into a scenic timesink. The status quo never changes in any way that matters and the only choices you'll get are whether you want to progress or not.

The Neutral

The plot is could use some more depth. I don't expect depth or brilliance for a non-story driven FPS but I'd like something more that 'collect the keys to get to the treasure'. As for the last hour or two, well that's the subject of a whole other post.

The Conclusion

I can't judge Borderlands completely as I only played some of the early parts with friends (oh did I mention the game is supposed to be co-op, cause it totally is) but from my mostly single player experience I can say that although it is no masterpiece Borderlands is much better than a lot of the FPS's out there. And if it weren't for the gameplay flaws mentioned above it probably would be a masterpiece.