Tom Clancy's The Division (TL;DR Review)

I dub this the "TL;DR Review"

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, gamers of all ages. A member of the #TAGteam has blessed us with his debut. He's going to be a regular feature on the blog so be ready (and show him some gamer love)! I leave you in the capable hands of the resident Reviewer.

*hands the reins over*

Are you a Ghost Recon fan? Did you enjoy Destiny? If the answer to these questions is yes you will probably enjoy this dystopian future rpg shooter, Tom Clancy's The Division.

The Division is a loot-grinder where the object is to spend hours killing enemies with slightly more health than the enemies you previously faced to get guns and equipment that slightly increase your stats so you can kill stronger enemies to get more guns and equipment with slightly better stats. The enemies become pretty repetitive during level grind from 1-30, the only deviation really being the enemies with ridiculously long and deceptive range on their flame throwers. This is the usual disappointing gameplay that I've come to expect in recent times where the trailer for a game gives you the idea that a game will be so innovative and interesting but you just get a re-purposed Diablo instead. 

I'm not exactly sure what I'm expecting out of a video game at this point. In destiny I expected to explore planets flying my own ship around fighting off enemies and crafting gear and in the division I expected being part of squads each with unique combatants hiding in our secret bases and tactically taking down enemies to gain supplies and gear. Another grinder rpg with everyone getting pretty much the same shit eventually.............yay.

Rating the setting, a bleak, snowy downtown NYC sets the mood only broken by cheesy NPC dialogue and lots and lots of having your character sprint from one destination to the next occasionally stopping to clear annoying enemies who aggro you constantly.
 

The potentially interesting part of the division so far is the Dark Zone, an area in which high level enemies spawn giving the best drops and players can engage in PvP (which no one does if they actually are farming gear because PKing results in being marked for a horrible and swift death). 

 

Hopefully with a few more patches and added content the game will become more interesting in the long term, but so far I give it a 7/10