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A decent third-person cover-based shooter hamstrung by poor movement and cover interaction mechanics.
The AI in The Division is serviceable so far. Not good, but OK. The grunts sometimes try to flank the player, but other times stand around in a cluster while I riddle them with rounds. The mission bosses are simply bullet-sponges with more brash and aggressive behavior to exploit this lame advantage.
The real problem holding this game back is movement. You would think that 10 years after Gears of War set the bar for movement in a cover-based shooter (wall bouncing!), games would be improving on traversal and making movement feel even better. Playing The Division, however, you would think game developers were still struggling to find a way to make interacting with cover a satisfying experience. At this point, it is simply unacceptable.
Graphically, The Division might be OK for some people, but on my shiny new Dell gaming laptop, textures universally look blurry, as if the higher LOD textures could not stream in fast enough and just gave up trying (and I'm on a fast 300Mbit cable connection).
The missions in singleplayer are standard fare:
* Go to point A, kill enemies
* Defend the objective from a few additional reinforcements
* Sweep the area and find marginally improved gear and loot
The story is somewhat laughable. In one case, I was told to secure a police station "or else Brooklyn will be lost". It falls flat. It fails to motivate. It does not induce any sense of urgency.
Overall, the gun play is reasonable, but cover interaction and movement is so broken that playing the game further is not worth the time.
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