Borderlands is a solid and entertaning shooter with some role playing elements
+Loud, frantic and explosive combat
+Great multiplayer
+Hundreds of different weapons and items
+4 different and unique playable characters
Negetive
-The term "RPG" can be a bit miss leading
-Pretty much no storyline
Borderlands is a "RPS" as its said on the back of the case, basically its suppost to be a RPG with FPS elements.
There's basically no story in Borderlands, it can be summed up in 4 words: Go find the vault. For some reason a mysterious women nags you throughout the game and keeps telling you to find this vault and thats the entire story in a nut shell.
Borderlands is suppost a RPG, however this can be quite miss leading because it really isn't. Its more of a sandbox game with role playing elements, this is because you can't get into conversations, characters never you interact with don't speek its all text, in fact, the only time you talk to people is when your getting missions and yet the only option you have is to accept or decline, the missions usualy involve fetch quests or go and kill a few things or go and talk to this other guy, its pretty basic stuff but the gameplay makes it a lot better. There isn't any RPG elements at all. The gameplay is great, its a FPS with very explosive combat, there are plenty of different weapons (assult rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, handguns etc). There's lots of different grenade upgrades and sheilds and plenty of loot, you wont find as much loot as you will find in Borderlands, all of the different upgrades and weapons are quite overwhelming. There are 4 different characters with there own unqiue characters, the soldier is skilled with weapons such as the assult rifle and shotgun, the beserker can go into beserker rage as he rapidly punches enemies, the hunter who is skilled with a sinper rifle and can use his pet the bloodwing and Siren who can use superhuman magical powers. All of them are very different but are equally entertaning to play as.
Borderlands is a lot more fun played multiplayer, playing it single player just seems like more of a dull experience. Especially over on XBL were you can play up to 4 players, which is pretty chaotic to be honest.
The graphics has its own distinct, cartoony style. Some people might find this appealing while others will find it a bit off putting. It think it takes a maybe less serious approach to the game, the audio is just as goofy and the visuals, however there isn't much voice acting or music at all.
I think that Borderlands offers a good package, for those who like FPS's and RPG's will probably enjoy it, while it isn't that much of a RPG its still a solid FPS.