As a whole, MGS4 exceeded my expectations. Gameplay wise, I enjoyed it more than some of the other notable titles of the past year, like Halo 3, GTA IV, CoD4 and the like.
In previous Metal Gear games, I felt limited by the controls being too obtuse and clunky. Paired with the extended alert stages, simply being seen by an enemy was an instant exercise in annoyance, with your options being kill the enemy and then bring on stronger, larger forces, or play the waiting game by hiding in a corner and laying still until the alert went away two to three minutes later.
While the controls are still clunky in MGS4, the improvements made to the first person perspective, and the additions of the octocamo and Drebin's shop make for a more enjoyable experience. They all open the game up to be played as more of a pure action game, and the octocamo allows you to quickly hide should you not want to go that route. Not having to constantly access my camoflauge patterns via a menu ala MGS3 eased my suffering, and Drebin always being on call doesn't restrict you to the type of ammo hording I experienced in MGS2.
My biggest complaint with MGS is its convoluted cast of characters and ridiculous multi-threaded story. MGS4 attempts to rectify that by filling you in on what you've missed, but they fail in their attempt to do so by going too far into the minutiae. I wanted the info that was on a Need-to-know-basis, but instead was deluged with detail after detail about previous MGS plot points that, seven years removed from MGS2 and 4 after MGS3, I either completely forgot, or never cared about in the first place. By the end of the game, what would be huge plot twists to the hardcore MGS fan had me simply sitting there almost oblivious. That said, despite their shortcoming, clearly the hardcore fan could've gotten exactly what they wanted from the game's story.
Now that that block of text is out of the way, here's my quick list of spoiler heavy thoughts that I don't feel like expanding upon in paragraph form.
Spoiler!
Thumbs down list:
-Screen transition from young Eva's cleavage to old Eva's horrifying cleavage.
-The neverending Tekken fight to close the game, which just seemed to serve as a reason to play a bunch of old MGS themes.
-The Gekkos not being as dynamic as the cutscenes would have you believe. There should've been more close quarters encounters with them that showed just how nimble and deadly they are.
-Snake being able to run in cutscenes, but when you control him he's slow as ****.
-The stupid marriage proposal scene towards the end of the game. Snake is near death, and these two clowns are ****in around.
-Snake picking up the barrel Akiba just sprayed with his shit.
Thumbs up list:
-The on rails sequences. I'm not a fan of scenes where the risk is low and the interaction matches it, but I thought they were both a nice reprieve from the action, and they looked absolutely incredible to match.
-Which reminds me, the in-engine post processed cutscenes were amazing. Not quite on the level of Crysis, but closer than I expected them to be.
-Upon the introduction of Rat Patrol member Jonathan, him sitting up revealing his exclamation point haircut and the simultaneous alert sound effect. Corny, but I liked it.
-The Crying Wolf pre-fight cutscene that clued me in that she could only really see the light on the Solid Eye. Dropping the Solid Eye and using a silenced sniper rifle, I took out the boss and every Frog solider without incident. I wasn't clued in on the tactic via codec, and thus felt rewarded when it worked.
There's more I'll think of later, but that's a decent summation of my current thoughts.