I played through the entire first act last night, which took me almost 6 hours. I know that that's probably above the average I'm sure, but I've made a very conscience decision to take my sweet time with this game. I want to sit back and take as much of it in as possible and not rush a single pixel to go by. The level of enjoyment has gotten to the point where I am so into the story/game that when a cutscene comes on I happily put my controller down and watch--even if it's only a few minutes long.
I am sitting here stunned at how compelling this game is in every sense of the gamers imagination. I dont remember the last time I played a game where I was so engrossed with the fiction. It is just so well done on every level! The amount of polish is something other developers should admire and strive for, for the bar has been raised.
Also, I was a little surprised (pleasantly) that this installment seems to have a little more humor in it than the previous games. Not much, but the level of humor has definitely been raised over previous MGS games.
Oh and the graphics--when I say "graphics" I'm sort of lumping everything under visual appeal into that (design, aesthetics, art direction)--are absolutely incredible. When I first began playing the game I had made this mental acknowledgement that it was on par with Uncharted, but now that I've made it through the first act and 5 minutes into the second, I can clearly say that this is above and beyond anything on the PS3 and most likely the X360. I cannot count how many times I said "wow" to myself during my play time last night.
There was this point, probably a few hours into the game, where something just hit me--that this game was truely something special. There is just so much to do and there are so many options in regards to approach, weapons, and combat.
I cannot wait to get home and play some more to see where this game takes me.
