Destiny is quickly shaping up to be one of the biggest games of this year, and if you are still decideing to get it or not, hopefully this will help. 

First off, Destiny is beautiful, stunningly beautiful. While playing I found myself stopping to admire the view on more than one occasion. Sometimes; however, the constant respawning of enemies and the persestent shared world make it difficult to really stop and enjoy the scenery. But it is the prettiest looking game since Bioshock. Also the asethic is very interesting in that the sci fi space opera has a lot of fantasy overtones and touches that were really interesting, for exampe there is a monarchy, and certain enemies are called knights, etc. It shares the aspect of reaching back to a more powerful past that is characteristic of a lot of fantasy.

Speaking of the persistant shared online world, I'm not sure if I like it. Essentially large sections of the maps are shared with other players, who you bump into. Occasionally you will find yourslef playing alongside (but not with) other players kind of awkwardly. As someone who prefers playing through a story by themselves, it can be a bit annoying. Especially in terms of sustaining a RPG mood, it is difficult to really get into the adventure of the story when you are bumping into people you know are going through the exact same story. Bungie says you can just play by yourself, but you definately miss out on all the top tier weapons unless you do PVP matches or raids (playing with strangers to do a goal.)

In terms of the gameplay, everything is very fluid, very polished. The actual combat of the game in intense, fun, and bombastic. Combat AI is what it needs to be, and the weapons are interesting (even if they could have taken a hint from Borderlands and added a bit more variety).

One thing that is annoying is that you have three tiers of weapons, primary, special and heavy. The game attempts to limit your use of the special and heavy weapons by making amunition less available. This tends to be the case in most games, but you consistantly find yourself wanting to use the more interesting guns, deciding to save your ammo for a boss, and then not using it all. The second you decide to use it, you are out almost immediately. This aspect could have been balanced better, because worrying about ammo/ ammo hunting, is always the least fun part of any game. The same goes for the powers, which are in and of themselves, pretty cool. There is something intenesly satisfying about flying through the air, slamming into the ground and leaving a wake of destruction (Iplayed as a Titan) But they take awhile to charge up, and then you find yourself holding off until you really need to use it, and then end up not using it as much as you would like. 

There are a lot of things you buy that don't really do anything, primarily the ships, which I really want to fly and control and do missions with, but pretty much are just the thing you look at on the loading screen. Also, finally, the landspeeder things are really cool, and really fun to drive, but they have no guns and there are no missions that specifically require them, not only that, the maps aren't sized so that you really need them to get around that often, and by the time you open up the menu and spawn the thing it is faster to walk. Then, on top of that, you constantly get ambushed by enemies, and have to get off the speeder (which has no weapons, except the enemies speeder which you can't buy or keep) , fight, then spawn it again. The whole landspeeder/ vehicles thing feels like a real missed opportunity and is the only aspect of the game that was truly and completely disappointing. 

The classes could stand to be more distinct, as you level up it is really just a matter of the powers.  The class level is at 20 (not very high) and there isn't a lot of choice compared to regular RPGs in terms of leveling up your character and tailoring it to your play style, you just kind of follow up the ladder. Not only that, you absoultely have to play socially to raise your character above 20. And this broaches  one of my major problems with the game, which is that in more ways than one they are trying to satisfy everyone and come up short. They attempted to satisfy FPS fans and RPG and MMO fans simulaneosly, and they came close, but its not really the best at any of those. It came closest as a FPS game, and if you choose to view it as a FPS, you will enjoy it more. 

Lastly, the game does a terrible job of explaining itself. It takes awhile to figure out what everything is and does, and on more than one occasion I found myself needing to google things to know what they do. And the story! They don't tell the story of the game. There is no explanation of the enemy races, no good explanation of the history. At one point a character says " I could tell you the story of .... but I won't" It feels like they are trying to build a mystery, but without establishing the world, turning it on its head doesn't have a big emotional effect. In the first few missions you fight the Fallen, but no characters tells you who or what the Fallen are, then you start to fight the Hive, but no one really explains what that is either (it goes on like that) In terms of it being a RPG they just drop you in the middle of this world and don't bother to explain it or flesh it out at all, and the really frustrating part about it is that it is a cool world, one I want to know more about, one I really want to dive into and become immersed in, but they just didn't put the flesh on the bones of the world they built, even if it is a pretty and asethtically interesting world. This, combined with the shared world, can sometimes make the missions feel arbitrary rather than part of an epic quest. 

While this review may seem a tad negative, it is not. This IP is really interesting, and in a lot of ways I feel like Bungie isn't fully comfortable with the RPG style yet, but that they will improve. Bungie is building a franchise and as the start for a franchise it is a good one, and in more ways than one I think Bungie is holding out on some of the cooler stuff for round 2 (like actualy flying a space ship in the space game)  I can not stress the fluidity of the gameplay or the beatuy of the world enough. If you treat this game like a FPS than you will have a lot of fun, but if you come to the game expecting something more along the lines of Mass Effect, you will be disapointed. 8.7-8.9 out of 10