The effort that was put into the games engine, overall graphic quality and effect really make this game an awesome experience... at least for the first hour that you're playing the game.

The map, like the developers said, is HUGE. And you would truly take an hour or so to walk across the entire map. It is an absolutely gorgeous environment. The day/night cycles, the cloud and weather changes, and setting fire to the environment... all very well executed.

But, the game lacks depth. I've so far played the game on it's highest difficulty for 3 days (about 12 hours total) and spent about 5 game days with my avatar in Farcry 2. I've only completed about 12% of the objectives which all seem to be the same missions over and over again.

If you pick up a main mission from the UFLL or the APR factions, one of your "buddy" mercenaries calls you and wants to help you complete the mission more effectively with less risk to you. So, instead of being a straightforward mission such as:

"Leave the town, kill police chief in his motorcade and come back to tell us of your success"

Turns into:

"Leave town, find your buddy at a remote site, turn a simple mission into 2 objectives, take down an entire village to find the one guy who has the police chief's itinerary (the guy who has the itinerary will also try to kill you, thereby alerting the whole village in case you were trying to be stealthy). Then drive across the map to the police chief's location (you owning the itinerary makes him go into hiding because he telepathically finds out from all the villagers you killed that it was stolen). Then when you get to the hiding place, there's not even a way to take him out easily (i.e. sniper rifle) as was supposed to be the case by what you were told by your buddy. So, kill more villagers, then kill the police chief."

But, it doesn't end there:

"Since you took out the chief, your smart buddy calls you on your cell and wants you to assist him in an ambush of some of the police chief's supporters. Of course you can't get there in time, and your buddy takes on 10+ soldiers by himself, instead of waiting for you and gets whacked."

That's just an example of what the missions are like, and what happens every mission. Basically, you either take the plain mission, and don't develop your buddy merc's history with you, or you take your buddies help and they at some point implode due to bad decisions.

As far as the AI is concerned in FC2... it's terrible. I've tried taking people out with silenced pistols or a silent MP5 and they just happen to know EVERY TIME where I'm at. And when you try to take them down with a RPK Light Machinegun, it takes a half a clip of 100 bullets to take someone down, unless they're 3ft away. But when you get shot, which you will even if you're trying to be stealthy, everyone within a 800 yard radius knows exactly where you're at. There's no way for the player to deceive the enemy AI, because once there's a breath of a scream coming out of a knifed enemy's throat, the entire UFLL or APR militia knows where you're at and seems to have a GPS tracking device attached to you. Bushes don't matter, misdirection via fire doesn't matter, night-time doesn't matter.

Another thing that is really weird; There are no women... none! The only woman in the game is a merc buddy you can help out. That's it. The streets of the villages are all filled with men that carry guns. There are no civilians, no men or women without guns.

Every map you drive through has these checkpoints on the roads (and you have to take the roads pretty much because the levels were designed with mountains blocking your ability to circumvent the checkpoints), these checkpoints usually have 3 - 6 guys waiting for you so you can get into a firefight. Even blowing through a small checkpoint with a Jeep or Landrover usually ends in losing half my health or a damaged vehicle. Which if the vehicle is damaged, the guys at the checkpoint get in their Landrover, with a mounted MG and start tearing through your rear end with you going 5mph.

Aside from being pretty, the game has ZERO replay value as I wouldn't want to put myself through the same painful missions for another 20+ hour gameplay session. The AI can be crafty and will try to flank you, but regardless always seems to know where you're at. And I'm not paying 45 diamonds for a camoflage suit when I can get a Dragnov SVD sniper rifle for 20 diamonds (45 diamonds... For a BDU suit?!?! Come The F On!)

This statement by Dave Haughton is just absolutely mindblowing:
"But it would be a huge mistake to turn away. A huge and terrible mistake. It’s not Far Cry 2’s fault that its opening hour is defined by repeated stabbing of the continue option. It’s just that it’s trying to craft a richer, more satisfying – and challenging – experience for you than a lot of games do."

Someone just got a lot of advertising money and is not willing to give a 100% unbiased review!