I only picked this up and played a week or so ago and I fell in love. The art design and sound direction (both music and ambient sounds/talking) are simply beautiful. Absolutely stunning and it took my breath away. Never have I ever played a game as gorgeous as this and whoever did the art direction is a genius. The story and characters were fantastic - Booker and especially Elizabeth just felt perfect and I really liked that.

For combat, I think I agree with Pheesh. You have a couple of neat unique gameplay elements like vigors, the rails and the tears to mix combat up a bit from your standard shooter, which I enjoy a lot. However, what it really does well with all of that is give you choice. There's one moment I remember where you try to go out of a door and you're pinned down by snipers who are on a rooftop. What do you do?!

  • Grab the sniper rifle that's to the side of you?
  • Have Elizabeth tear in a couple of air hooks and swing your way up to the snipers, engaging them at close quarters?
  • Use your vigors! I think there's a water spill you can use to shock those foo's, or maybe you can possess one and have him fight the others?!

I think that's superb game design. Presenting the gamer a problem, encouraging them to look around for a variety of solutions and then letting them pick one that suits their style of play.

The only thing that I think irks me is the ability to only carry two weapons. I get why but then I think when you have heavy weapons with such a low ammo count as an option it doesn't really encourage me to use them. Two and a pistol would've been nice! Two, a pistol and a heavy would've been even nicer