I'm not in the mood to argue but will agree to disagree, I did not walk away from MGS4 being wowed by the gameplay side, and I felt that stealth was more of a novelty in this entry than a center piece as it had in previous installments. The combat was fluid but lacked being tensed cause I feel Snake could easily get out of most situations with human opponents (the Metal Gears are another story entirely) through brute force or just tricking them into fighting each other. It was a novel idea, I just don't feel it made the first half of the game exceptionally fun for myself cause I would spend 10 minutes sneaking past a group of guards and staying in the shadows only to get picked off later and have to redo the section, then I try to just walk in plain site and shoot anything that moves and was able to get through the same section in less time than the first. This scenario happened a few times and I kinda felt that I was being silly by trying to be sneaky when it doesn't net me anything other some personal sense of accomplishment and maybe a different title rank at the end. Its like playing a game where you need to get past a door, sure it has all these wonderful gameplay options to build a key and maybe even tricking someone to open the door for you but if the game gives you the option of just breaking down the door, why bother with the rest? The objective is met, you still get the same reward, and you did it in less time so you can get to the save point and be able to watch all of the Tonight Show.

I just prefer the original idea of MGS where stealth was imperative cause Snake was not a physical one man super soldier like so many other generic space marines from other games. Getting spotted meant certain death unless you were quick on your toes and wits. Combat was only useful for getting away, not getting through. I will agree that Prague was amazing and is easily the high point of the gameplay but I feel the rest was not as polished as I would like.