Battlefield 3's successor goes a long way into building on what BF3 has done right, with a great emphasis on visuals and sounds. It manages to build a better battlefield atmosphere, taking advantage of the newest hardware.
Battlefield 4 definitely succeeds at that, especially in multiplayer. The single player campaign is a cacophony without heads or tails, where the visuals can't detract from scripted action that takes away both freedom and fun. Shooting stuff is always fun but the difference between a good shooter game and a great one is that the storyline helps the player get immersed and connect with the campaign's characters. BF4 does even less in that regard than BF3.
The multiplayer, however, is definitely a great experience. Or it will be when EA and DICE manage to fix all the issues. As a gamer, I got hints of that great experience in those rare moments I could connect to servers (I have a 200Mbps fiber optic broadband at home, giving me 3 to 8ms ping across all continents with the notable exception of America - seems off limits for some reason with pings over 90ms). Even when I could go in, there were plenty of bugs and graphic glitches, many of which haven't been fixed according to people on forums.
Aside from that, here are some random impressions I could make:
- the poorly name but heavily advertised Levolution is overrated: sure, it's looks great and it does change the gameplay on a map, but at the same time it begs the question: if you can collapse a skyscraper or a radiotelescope antenna, how come you can't even chip a neon advertising panel? It's like having a sweet dream during a warm cozy slumber only to be violently woken up for no apparent reason
- snipers have been put at a great disadvantage by being given bullet trails. In your average game there's no way to hold a position or to infiltrate one.
- the old BF3 problem of having few vehicles has not been addressed and now it's worse with boats being added on. Boats are even now a novelty and everyone wants t try them in real action, so every now and then you have people waiting for gun boats to respawn while those who take them hold on to them until the bitter end. Even worse, you only have 1 (one) on a map, it's not even one per team.
- netcode has been ignored in favor of visuals, so ever s often you get to die behind cover for no apparent reason .... but you get to have that moment beautifully rendered.
Overall, there's no way I can recommend this game in its current state. I would suggest people to join the forums and follow the state of things before buying.
Notes: I played the game for 8 days, of which 5 were almost entirely dedicated to this game.