It clearly doesn't match its predecessor, but can this game at least stand on its own... barely...
The drop of the action point system truthfully is a downside... for example: If I see an enemy, and he doesn't see me, I could have put full accuracy in the shot, and achieve an almost certain hit - this doesn't happen anymore...
Also there seems to be a huge wait between shots... the game engine shows an "aiming time" in correlation with the distance to the target... but it doesn't take into consideration if i already aimed at him once... (if I aim once at a target, yes maybe it takes 1.8 seconds, I take the shot - if I now want to shoot again at the same target, the aim time needs to be lower.. not the same...) - this thing really gets aggravating when melee attacking enemies start charging at you, and your (jackass) merc keeps staring like a *beep* *beep *beep*... even if your enemy is like 3 meters away from you, the merc keeps pausing like 2 seconds between shots, with an automatic rifle... I mean come on...
[there are so many good mods for Jagged Alliance 2, that are free, these guys should have learned from those mods... they even got to shooting a specific number of bullets in burst fire, and the burst with a chosen accuracy... I mean even now I play a mod of JA2, and its only downside is the graphics, heck I don't even care it's 2D, only the ugly pixels bother me... and even so, when I play that game, time flies]
Also, this game has a lot of bugs in regards to aiming and shooting... for example if you queue 3 shots at an enemy as he is running towards you, and if during your "shootout" the enemy will be walking through some open doors, no matter what, your merc will not be able to shoot (quote "I couldn't take the shot") even though there was a clear line of sight, etc...
Some people said that the graphics are good... I couldn't disagree more, considering there is no true dynamic lighting (day and night are instantaneous ... even in a game over 10 years old, there was a gradual lighting ..) .. If you thought that the portraits of JA2 looked awkward ... wait until you see these... and its clearly not optimized, I can run Crysis at high, but this game still lags sometimes .. (Core i7 2600k 16 gb ram, 480 gtx)
Music - well, certainly more diverse than its predecessor, except one track that is cool (the one playing in map overview) the rest of them are clearly not so enthralling...
Voice over ... I don't know what to say... its not that its bad, but for a 2012 game it certainly could have had more lines... (maybe I got accustomed to the voice acting of JA2)
The gameplay is much too easy... probably because of immense simplifications... you can put 4 mercs, each with a long range rifle, put one to shoot a random bullet, and every enemy will come running to their deaths... - the enemy AI's hearing is much too exaggerated.. I mean there are two walls, with closed doors, separating my crouched merc from the enemy.. and the latter hears me walking? I mean come on...
The camera is very annoying ... if it's 3d, why wouldn't you let us point the camera wherever the *beep* we want? at whatever distance we want... (for me it always seemed it was too close.. ) *btw, no more silent walking
The story... well ...its an improvement, now you have some more side-quests... (some of them pretty interesting, I'll admit)
A lot of the time the game seems like a beta... why did you guys name the Glock Klock... H&K K&H, some specifications are wrong (sniper scope 4x says it's a reflex scope) , bullpup rifle is clearly not bullpup design in the picture...
Even from the start of the game, if you read AIM policy (yes, I read it because it seemed funny) - it tells you that you can hire mercs 1 day to 14 days max - you can buy the merc with or without the equipment, but interestingly when you buy him, he's yours for the remainder of the game...
The equipment management system is a real pain... the militia "training" is also a giant pain... your mercs don't (need) sleep anymore...
Weapon attachment is more restricted .. only 6 mods if I'm not mistaken ... no more bipods, laser scopes...
Skill learning is not based on what you do in the game anymore... you can assign points however you like.. though your characters have 10 as a max level... so if for example your guy say shoots 10k bullets at enemies, he does not become more proficient at say - marksmanship. Opening locked doors with lockpicks "consumes them" ... but opening locked doors is not as time consuming as the previous game... so I'd say it's a plus... as is the case with repairing weapons... - armor cannot be repaired - seems to be more realistic, so it's also a plus from me.
Healing is ... quick... for this thing, JA2 was really hard, I mean when your guy had 50 % of his hp, you needed to bandage him, and then WAIT some days with a medic by his side to fully recover... shooting enemies in legs, caused them to collapse (maybe I'm not doing something right, but enemies that I shoot in the leg never collapse)
Oh, I almost forgot... you can see every enemy ... there is no "fog of war"... that's just cheating.... I can see every enemy, but they can't see me... very interesting... At first I thought, oh goody, I have a satellite up there that likes me... but I could see even through buildings - hehe
All in all... the question is :
Can this game stand on its own?
(for a gamer that hasn't played the previous masterpiece)
I can confidently say : Barely!