I bought this game being intrigued by the concept of starting as a no-name wanderer and earning your way through as a lord or king but I was seriously disappointed with the execution of this concept and no, for the most part, it wasn't the ugly menu and loading screens that turned me off.
After a brief loading screen, I was thrown into the game and the first contact was with the aesthetics, obviously. Everything looks dull and boring in Mount and Blade, and I am not one to usually care about the graphics. But the visual elements give you the impression that everything is dead and not worth giving a damn about. The atmosphere makes a good mix with the graphics, meaning that the taverns and the halls of the lords have absolutely no real feel to them. NPCs in these locations usually stand still. Also, these places are rather small, so they give the impressions of rooms of variable sizes, rather than actual buildings.
But let's move on to the real problem of this game which is the combat mechanics. As soon as my game loaded, I had to deal with some bandit that attacked me and let me tell you, I was surprised to see how awkward it was to control my character. I was almost moving my entire body in real life expecting to get my character to have a more natural feel and slow movements. The large scale battles, the arenas and the tournaments aren't any better. They are hard to win especially due to the lack of control that you have on your character's movements and especially on a horse. Riding a horse in the game is absolutely horrible, I quit trying.
Also, I have to warn you: this game is slow; very slow. It takes lots of time to make money and win the favor of the lords and you lose a lot and you technically start all over again with 0 troops under your command (if you choose the "save each time you quit" option that is). In addition to that, lords will usually give you tasks that involve travelling throughout long distances in order to be completed and when you get to the said place, the one you are looking for might even not be there anymore. Other times, you are requested to scout a huge area for a bandit hideout or what not and honestly, you might even fall asleep doing and re-doing these paths over and over again, especially because you feel like the travelling speed is very slow. All of these aspects of the gameplay make this game feel like a huge chore.
So is Mount and Blade - Warband a bad game? Not, necessarily. It feels dull, boring, too long and too slow, but if you are someone with great patience that happens to like games in this category then I highly recommend giving it a shot. If you are a gamer that's looking for a game that is fast paced and has a great gameplay then you should probably look elsewhere. My mark: 5/10.