Crysis 2 leak - and why the game might suck

[Mr Buckshot]

I'm sure a lot of people here have heard about it by now, and to avoid breaking any piracy-discussion rules here I won't post any links. I'm not gonna download it either, not just because it's wrong, but also because of the resnet ban risk.

However, I have read comments on the general gameplay these bad pirates are experiencing with the leak, and I'm getting worried. No I don't mean bugs - those are expected in an unfinished game. I mean bad gameplay design.

What I've discovered so far (mostly reading comments on certain sites):

- You need to hold down the ADS button to stay in ADS mode. It's not one-click-toggle like with, what, every ADS-based FPS game out there? This reeks of console port stench.
- Graphics customizability is awful. There are just 3 presets - hardcore, advanced, and gamer. It's not even clear which is highest and which is lowest.
- AI scaling is as bad as in the original Crysis. Instead of making enemies smarter and more aggressive, they just give the enemies more health. So you'll pump an entire clip into an enemy on the highest difficulty, and he still has enough health to retaliate.
- There's a lot of forced stealth, simply because of how enemies have so much health.
- Performance is now a bit better than the old one (barring bugs) but movement is still sluggish.
- heard conflicting opinions of whether the graphics are improved or a step back.
- The "armor mode" nanosuit option is now quite useless - it actively drains suit energy while marginally reducing damage taken. Even when you're not getting hit by bullets, it still drains energy.
- (somewhat biased opinions) Guns apparently feel and sound horrible
- (only good thing) You can pick up ammo and goodies by walking across them. No need to manually pick them up.

I really hope that this leak is a several-months-old build and not the latest one, because if these decisions aren't corrected in 49 days, the game is going to suck, leak or no leak. While I did enjoy the original game, I had my share of complaints over the gameplay design, and I was hoping that they'd be addressed in the sequel. If Crytek plans to delay the release date because of this leak, I hope it's not just about the key authentication thing, but also about fixing the gameplay.

[Cortexian]

Tons of information on on it in this previously locked thread.