Graphics are nice, gameplay is just kinda ok overall. Overrated? Check. By a lot? No. Just a smidge.
The gameplay is kind of a mix of greatness and too many moments of mediocrity. The first half of the game, all the scenes in the jungle environments, is really fun. Unfortunately Crytek decided to stick in some "swimming" levels that are just painfully annoying. There is nothing of note about these levels that is good, other then the look of them. FPS games where you get to swim are just painful to play, always have been, always will be. Yes I did play Descent. No I did not like that one either.
There are two key mechanics to Crysis' gameplay. Weapon customization and Nanosuit.
Weapon customization is not as important a factor in the game as has been suggested. The interface to do it is super slick and intuitive, but the need to customize weapons is basically zero. It really is just personal preference and you are never required to make any of the customizations, except maybe the flashlight for some levels. Being able to put a scope on a Gause Rifle is kind of neat.
A lot has been said about the Nanosuit, and honestly it's all true. The added ability to swap around certain characteristics of your character are quite fun. You can swap between 4 different ablities that are all very useful and fun. They all run on the same energy meter so there is a certain level of strategy required to use them effectively. Using the super speed ability to run behind a rock, then turning invisible and jumping out to blast unsuspecting enemies is a really fun tactic, provided you pay attention to how much energy you have. It is common to be sitting in the bush waiting for your meter to recharge while being fired at. I really think this aspect of Crysis, mixed with the FPS elements, provided most of the fun throughout the entire game.
The sound in Crysis is pretty well done. The voicework is top notch. All of the actors are really into their parts and none of their work removes you from the game. They did their jobs perfectly. The sound effects that go with each weapon fire are all unique and fit the weapons well. As do the explosion sound effects when anything goes "boom" in a dramatic way. My personal opinion about sound in a game is that if you don't ever think about it, it was done just right because the only time you should think about it is when something is wrong.
The music itself has a very military/patriotic feel to it, and is perfectly suited for the game. All the cutscenes are balanced well with the music and carry the intended dramatic effect really well.
The story is kind of a typical On-Earth-Alien-Invasion Sci-fi story that doesn't really have a lot of surprises, although the first one in the game is done really well. All in all the story is really about several well done dramatic cutscenes all stuck together into a mediocre story. The game doesn't even completely close out the story as you are left feeling like there is a lot more to do, but sadly credits are rolling and it's over. I am getting tired of games doing the "to be continued" feel at the end, and Crysis is no exception. Just finish the damn game the first time please. If you want to do a sequel, fine. But at least end the first one.
The graphics in Crysis are the talk of many a forum these days, and as previously stated, rightly so. The game looks great on high end machines that are capable. Unfortunately the game scales very poorly, and the lowest settings make the game look really bad in comparison to screenshots and videos bouncing around the internet. I played most of the game at the lowest resolution (800x600 for me) with all the settings on Low. At these settings I was still getting 30fps on average, with occasional peaks up into the mid 40's and frequent dips into the 10-20 range. Here are my computer specs to give you an idea:
P4 3.4 ghz 800FSB
7950GT 512MB 550/1300 8xAGP
1gig OCZ PC4200 2-3-3-6
250gig Seagate - SATA150
Now I do realize the single core CPU and 8xAGP are going to raise a lot of "Well duh it runs poorly" statements, but those specs run a lot better then you would think. The 7950GT is a super beefy card for the 8xAGP interface and I am getting 4500's on 3DMARK'06 with it. This is absurd for an 8xAGP rig. I upgraded to this card after getting Crysis, from having previously been using a 7800GS with 256MB of video ram. This older card was running the game quite a bit slower. The fact that I saw such a performance difference really just makes me question why 8xAGP was ignored so quickly considering there is obviously plenty of bandwidth room to work with.
Unfortunately Crysis has some seriously piss-poor optimization issues. Why a game runs at a constant 30fps for 15 seconds, then suddenly stutters like crazy for 3-4 before going back up to 30fps is a mystery. I did plenty of tweaking with the settings with my card and was able to turn up the resolution to 1280x960 with all settings on medium. At these settings I was only loosing 5fps but still having the randomly stuttering madness. I tweaked my ram a bit. I defragged to make sure all the texture loading would be as fast as possible. I also went into task manager and removed all programs that would push my total memory usage over 1gig while playing and was STILL having these problems. So despite the fact that my card can crank out a healthy 25fps on medium, with a perfectly acceptable resolution, the game still can't function smoothly. Even when overclocking my single core CPU to 3.8ghz on water cooling the stuttering continued. I blame this on piss-poor optimization since the blame really doesn't belong anywhere else. The game just does a poor job of grabbing data off the hard-drive as it is needed. It seems that no attempt to smoothly "stream" in data was made. Crytek should have done a much better job of making the game run smoothly for gamers on slightly older hardware. I have absolutely zero problems running UTIII, Orange Box, COD4, and World in Conflict at smooth frames rates without stuttering. These games will at least keep the frame rate maintained at a constent level, instead of dive bombing, peaking, and jumping all over like Crysis has a tendency to do.
I did crank up all the graphical settings as high as they would go to see what kind of frame rate I would get. At 1680x1050 with all settings on High I was running a pretty "smooth" and consistent 5fps, and honestly the game looked freakin' incredible, as a slide show tour. I killed a few enemies and managed to blow up a gas station at these settings (it was a chore, trust me). Truely an impressive looking game.
Also the inability to adjust the draw distance is mind boggling. That tends to be one of the first settings I look to adjust when having any kind of issues. I appreciate that this game carried the tradition of long draw distances that was started with Far Cry, but it is virtually unneccesary in this game. Having the ability to turn it down a ton would have been a great way to possibly eliminate the stuttering issue. If this is possible somehow in the game, it's not in the menus anywhere, which is a shame.
I have had the chance to experience this game on a much higher spec'd PC, as recently I helped my fiance put together an entirely new desktop computer:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
EVGA GeForce 8600 GTS 512MB DDR3 Video Card
Abit IP35 Pro Mobo
Kingston HyperX 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 RAM (PC 8500)
Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM SATA300 32MB CacheHD
On this rig the game still suffers a bit, but the stuttering is almost not existent. She runs it with all settings on medium. At this level the game still looks great but will occasionally have the frame rate tank into the 10-20 range.
Crysis is a game that will drive many an upgrade for PC gamers. The requirements are steep. There is no getting around this. Even though my rig is somewhat aged, many of the components on it are as good as it gets for how old they are. For anyone out there to try and argue that PC gaming is not expensive is honestly quite laughable in the face of a game like Crysis.
Lastly, I can say that I have been very happy with my purchase of the game. I thoroughly enjoyed the Nanosuit and the big explosions, as well as stalking enemies through the jungle. The added novelty factor of having a game that I can test all kinds of hardware configurations on is also really fun. I am looking forward to playing through it again when I finally get around to jumping to a quad core with an 8800GTx or something. I am long overdue for a system overhaul level upgrade, and I think this game will be the first test for any new rig I end up building.