Hi. I'm a pretty old Bungie fan- my first scrape with the company was opening the Marathon 2 demo on the MacAddict issue 1 CD-ROM and picked up the Mac Action Sack as soon as I was able to convince my parents. Followed Halo as well as I could over the years despite not being an Xbox guy. Destiny 1 was enough of a head scratcher that I didn't try Destiny 2 until last year but I bought Marathon 2026 on the week of release. I have some thoughts. First of all, I love the visual design and aesthetics. Very much recalls mid-90s CGI, right down to having what looks like some of that Atkinson Dithering in some of the faction graphics. The game looks beautiful in motion and the gunplay feels good. The whole looting interface can be a bit clunky but that seems like something I can work with. Now, onto the negatives- let's break down a typical gameplay session for me. Spend a minute equipping my runner shell. Spend a minute loading in once I click run. Spend a minute running to the Objective in game (I've been trying to do the Traxus Introduction quest for like my last 10 runs.). From here it usually goes to Hell: either I run into a mess of UESC bots, or I get shot in the back by a bunch of other runners that were camping the entrance to ambush us. Okay. So I drag my helpless shell around with no recourse but to hope one of of my team survives long enough to revive me. Oh, they didn't? Guess I'll die. Wait to load back to the report screen, click through three screens to get back to main lobby. That's probably five minutes, and honestly? A lot of times it feels like an absolute waste. More frustrating than fun. It doesn't encourage me to keep playing or invest in better gear. I can't even shoot back most of the time since they ambush in groups and gang up on you. I'm like- I'm just gonna use the Sponsored Kit because I'm probably gonna get wiped in five minutes anyway, why take a risk at all? Look, I'm not a multiplayer gamer. I really could give a rip about Deathmatch-With-Extra-Steps. I just want to enjoy the visual world the team has created and complete the contracts and whatever story bread crumbs you'll feed us. I'd love to see a future where the Deathmatchers get their own corner and the Questers get theirs. Anyway, I'll keep playing, but maybe not as much as I might.