To be fair to MGS4 here, MGSV is pretty much worse in every regard concerning "lots of unfulfilled promises" I can't even remember half the stuff Kojima promised for MGS4. I feel my biggest issues with the game stem from too many "Doing in the Wizard" moments with the Nanomachine handwave which really cheapened several of the more fun elements of the series, serious character rewrites for most of the returning MGS2 cast, and too many cheap player punches that feel ridiculous in hindsight like the FOXDIE subplot and Big Boss returning in the mid-credit scene just to explain the plot to the player before dying again.

I was also a bit disappointed that despite this gaming being a conclusion to Solid Snake, the game never really acknowledges the first two Metal Gear titles in any way outside of possibly retconning Dr. Madnar as being alive, assuming the character mentioned in MGS4 is the same one from MG2. I mean they could have at least had Holly White show up for a walk on. Also, what happened to Natasha from MGS1? It's like she wrote the Shadow Moses book in MGS2 and then dropped off the face of the earth.

From a gameplay standpoint, the heavier emphasis on action gameplay tweaks kind of made the game a bit more of a slog than I would care for. Outside of arbitrary grading, self-imposed challenges, and changing the amount of Drebin Points you get (which itself is ironic because you need to not fight in order to amass more points to buy weapons you can't use if you want them all) stealth just doesn't feel important in this entry. At least Ground Zeroes rebalanced the gameplay to make fire fights more deadly forcing you to try to limit them as much as possible while PW and PP have the soldier recruiting mechanic to keep it relevant.