It's not a massive surprise that Battlefield 4 has reviewed well. It's one of those franchises that toes the line between being as big and bombastic as Call of Duty, with as much pick up and play and therefore draws a lot of the fringe gamer crowd, but it also isn't CoD, which means it gets a few of the more gamer-like gamers too, who like too pick the underdog.
Still, it's well funded enough that an awful game - especially from a studio as experienced at making big, explosive multiplayer maps and modes as DICE - would be a shock to everyone involved, but that doesn't mean this one's perfect.
In-fact, according to most of the reviews, Battlefield 4 mostly gives us much of the same, even if it does evolve it a little and continue to build that tower of unlocks that we all know one day will dominate the game so much it'll topple down all around us.
The single player campaign is now a little longer than before, but according to most it's pretty vapid, featuring a lot of hallways sprints and in-game cut scenes and set pieces, which is the movie like experience most people expect it to be, but it seems like it could do with giving the players more of the freedom that is showcases in the multiplayer mode.
This is where Battlefield has always and continues to shine, with sprawling environments that are now assaultable by water, as well as all the traditional angles. Squads are bigger, but player counts remain the same - though add one extra for the commander mode which returns from BF2142.
Then there's the addition of destructible environments on a massive scale, which DICE has termed "Levolution." I'm not sure what's worse, that or Drivatar, but it seems that in this instance at least, everyone's in agreement: blowing the environment up is fun, especially since you don't need a tank to do it.
One universal complaint from people though, is that with so many versions of this game being put out, DICE has had to scale back the visuals in some instances. There's horrific pop-in effects on the 360 and PS3 versions, but even the Xbox One and PS4 versions struggle with aliasing and low resolutions.
The Xbox One is the worst culprit there though, outputting at 1280 x 720 while the PS4 at least does 1600 x 900. Ultimately the PC is the best version but who are we kidding, that's the case with 99 percent of shooters.
Battlefield 4 has come out well, even if it's single player is pretty mundane - you were all buying it for the multiplayer anyway right?
Ultimately BF4 is being scored on average as 8.5/10, but there's a lot of 9s out there too. This is a solid buy if you like this sort of thing, but don't expect to be surprised.
