I know I will prolly get bombarded with hate mail and called negative things from some ppl from my opinion on The Division cuz there is a large community who were and still are very much invested in the Divisions gameplay. So I will begin with a few things that did work for me in this RPG/shooter.
First off, it needs to be noted that the RPG elements such as leveling your character up and customizing your base of operations among others is a welcomed and refreshing quality and works well wit The Division. If anyone has ever played any Rainbow Six games from Tom Clancy's acclaimed series then they ya know that this key feature is sorely missing. So, dev's answered a lot of fans requests to implement some RPG mechanics into The Division and with good results. There are various perks and special abilities that players can choose from and while most of em aren't anything to jump up and down about, there are various options making your character feel special and customized to your liking. The perks and traits that are passive range from things like headshot damage increased to first aid kit upgrades. Essentially, there aint nothing new being introduced but they still instill that 'Want to keep going forward" attitude in players. The base of operations where you will spend a bit of your time is basically your home base or safe zone. There are numerous places where you are safe and can rest or purchase gear but the base of operations serves as more of a HQ where you will attempt to rebuild society. Everyone from docs in the Medical Unit to the Tech guys supplying agents like yourself wit gadgets and toys all require your assistance and will assign you missions and side ops which are mostly at some point mandatory. Complete these missions and get rewarded nicely and slowly build and add on even more bases and units in your home base. As you progress, you will gain access to many features previously unaccessible. Things such as an improved Armory, a Pediatric unit for sick or parent-less kids will be integrated in your HQ. You can choose which ones you want and in what order. This feature of customization & leveling up was appreciated by me as the attempts to add RPG elements are very noticeable and worthy.
I'll talk next about the online aspects of the Division. For the most part, everything runs pretty smoothly. The missions you can undertake will have you match up against players around the same level as you and team up against the hordes of AI that are increasingly tough to take down. You may be sayin, ah I ain't never gonna need anyone help much less online help, but trust me, you will. Some of the missions are only beatable online with a cohesive team with a strategy. This can be quite intense and fun and is one of The Divisions better features, The servers can be slow and patchy, and the load screens sometimes go on for days, but online compatibility is a gem in the rough.
Which brings me to what I don't like about The Division. The difficulty (while sometimes frustrating) is not too complicated and almost seems just right, some of the NPC enemies you will kill can easily absorb 400 rounds of an M16 and then even eat a few frags before being taken down. This is a bit ridiculous and can be very aggravating when you hit your target that many times, critically even, and for him to just keep looking at ya and tearing you to pieces with his. This also takes away from the realism. Also, the boring and repetitive fetch quests the game will keep throwing at you. In a nutshell, The Division has only a couple of different tasks and they may word their personal request different from others, but don't be fooled, you will be engaging in the exact same thing you have done a 100 times and it will not get any more eventful. This is a lazy theme, and it doesn't help that it repeats until all interest is lost in even doing the main story quests either. These redundant and typical missions will have you guarding supplies n keeping NPC's off of them, getting rid of NPC's or leaders, or getting the water supply cut back on (which has you do the same ole thing the aforementioned quests have you do). there is absolutely no depth and it is disappointing to get only 3 hrs in the game and see that there isn't much gonna change from start to finish about these quests but the locations. The main story fares far better and does at least provoke a little bit of interest.
There are tons of collectibles, journals , cell phone recordings and much more that can be found and used to level up and get that coveted 100% completion. There are ALOT of hidden items and goodies hid everywhere and sadly, finding them can prove to be more enticing than 90% of the games side quests. This does introduce the replayability feature and collectors and completionists will love the mulititude of items scattered about. It just sucks that is only thing that really leaves a lasting memory in my head. Instead of trying to solve the story plot and figure out what caused the epoidemic and find the enemies who got every one sick, I was ususally either more interested in hunting down more collectibles or in joining someone to aid in their story quest. Which reminds me, the area the game calls the Dark Zone, which is basically the dangerous hunting ground and the home of highly skilled and leveled killers (both A.I. & other players). Anything goes while in the Dark Zone, and you can simply stroll along as you please like you can on the main streets. Gear and loot is much more valuable in the DZ and this battlefield is a great place to level up and test your skills.
Critics, for the most part, praised The Division highly and painted a much prettier picture than what I ended up seeing in the final product. Its bugged to hell & back and there is literally no thought put into the dozens of side tasks, but the RPG elements and online capabilities somehow can distract you from noticing these issues most of the time, but just wasn't as impressed with The Division, especially considering the time we had to wait for it to finally release. This is still an ok shooter but just wasn't enough for me.