The Last of Us really only deserves no more than an 8/10. Before playing the game, I had thought the score too low considering the amount of hype surrounding the game. However, after playing it I must say that the game did not satisfy even my expectation for an 8/10 game.
I played it awhile ago, and the only thing that was somewhat interesting was the story. However, that story was chopped up by less interesting portions of gameplay (not because I don't prefer gameplay over story, but because the gameplay here is not interesting). The crafting system is more of a gesture than anything else, and there is absolutely nothing "survival" about the game. It's also not much of a third person shooter since going in guns blazing is always a bad idea, and you are much better off using a stealth approach.
In terms of stealth mechanics, TLOU is significantly weaker than games dedicated to stealth such as Hitman Absolution, Splinter Cell Blacklist or Dishonor. AI is simply retarded. In Hitman Absolution, if you throw something to distract an enemy, and the enemy had a view of the projectile's trajectory, he would investigate the source of the projectile instead of the sound. Sure, it may make sense for blind zombies, but it was ridiculous when human enemy who was just around a corner to chase after a bottle like some doggie when I throw a bottle out from in front of him. Then there is the immersion-breaking "invisible allies". They can be pretty dumb and take cover on the other side of a cover facing the enemy! However, they are invisible and a horde of zombies would ignore them until the player engages in combat.
The graphics is also not worthy of praise. It's tolerable, but the low resolution and severe lack of AA hurts the design of the game significantly. There is a lot of blurry textures and inconsistent levels of quality throughout the game. There are also many occasions where character models would clip into each other, especially Ellie who frequently runs right through Joel. Finally, it was surprising since I never expected it on a console - there are graphical glitches. Sometimes a texture would be missing for a second, or textures in the distance would be flickering, or an animation may not play out correctly for half a second. It appears to be the result of a game truly pushing the limited hardware of PS3, and the glitches did not add to the graphics of the game. FPS also drop below 30 fps fairly frequently. This game actually looks a lot worse in motion, and does not offer the level of visual quality one would expect, after looking at its screenshots.
The first 10 minutes of TLOU deserve a 10/10. That was narrative gold, displaying how subtle player choices can be meaningfully implemented into what many other games would convey using a cut-scene. The rest of the game deserves 7/10 at best - very mediocre gameplay carried by a decent story. I highly recommend trying out the game's introduction. The experience should allow you to grow as a gamer. However, I can't fault you if you lose interest a couple hours afterwards.