Underrated and misunderstood
The 40th day launches you into the action without any pretension and its immediately apparent fro the feel of the controls that there has been an extensive refinement to create an intuitive and responsive control layout, this is evident after a few hours of play, once you are in synch with the pace of the game and feel confident with the new level of interactivity in the environment and with NPC's you can string together your assault tactics with vaults, mele moves and use cover dynamics to create some genuinely fluid and exciting combat of the sort seen in hardcore action flicks. One instance of this was a burst of cohesive action over 2 chapters while I was playing in the early hours, all of a sudden everything just worked, opening with a high octane fire fight you can maneuver easily around and over cover using highly accurate weapons and grenades to take down foes, during such a moment I got in close and began using mele attacks, I was impressed with the variety of physical take downs and the ability to finish off foes by stamping their heads in or snapping necks, stringing these moves together in between firefights is just sensational and alone is a reason to give this game a go.
I'm unsure about the moral choice content of this game but I think it is flimsy because there is just no way of painting a positive picture in this situation, war is hell, there are seldom any happy endings or positive consequences and I defy anyone to expect any in this game regardless of right or wrong decisions, THAT is the message that overides the expected 'functionality' of the morality system in this game, it is brutal, but that is the inevitable truth.
This second installment of AOT is much darker and mature than the previous title and gone is most of the much maligned frat boy interactivity of the protagonists however much work has been put into fleshing out the way they work together environmentally.
All in all this game is not perfect and makes no claim to this but can be massively enjoyable when played inventively and with a touch of intelligence you can mine a lot of fun out of it, as another reviewer says, 'this game plays by its own rules' and I'm glad of it.