Borderlands has tons of potential, but it is marred by a lifeless environment & AI, and technical incompetence.
Easily the most anticlimactic and disappointing ending ever. When I finished the game I was like...wait, what, thats it!?!?!
The friendly AI around you is sooooo lifeless and mostly non interactive. Towns have almost no people in them, and the few that are in there some of them you can walk up to and press E to talk to and they say nothing. Others will utter the same one liner over and over again. The other remaining plot characters will only talk to you if they have to give you a quest and even then the dialogue is short, and can easily be skipped.
There is a tremendous amount of humor, and a pretty good amount of quests to do.
Gameplay - 9/10
This is Borderlands' one and only, but awesome nevertheless, strength. The RPS (RPG+FPS experience) is so well done. Borderlands covers such a broad array of each element from both genres, that not one element is too overwhelming nor too shallow. Strict RPG fans wont be turned away by FPS mechanics nor will FPS fans be dumbfounded by RPG leveling mechanics.
The gameplay is extremely rewarding. Finishing quests gives you XP. Killing enemies gives you XP and you can loot their equipment they drop. Traveling entire areas usually take you through hordes of enemies and reward you with weapons chests along the journey.
All of this gameplay is diversified through 4 unique character classes. Each class has its own skill tree and with each level up, a point is awarded to be used to advance your character however you see fit. Each class also has its own unique ability. Characters also progress and become more efficient with any weapon class they use. At any time you can reset your skill tree and assign the points obtained to other skills to see how they fare.
All of the gameplay areas are fully open ended, and free for exploration anytime, anywhere (as long as you unlock them through the main quest, which after completion you can free-roam...similar to games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion). Although they're very mediocre, vehicles can be obtained, but there is also the use of fast travel transportation points.
Online games are very flexible and can have players join in and out freely whenever they want to and not lose any loot or XP earned while playing.
Multiplayer games are scaled to how many players there are, and what levels they are. This in turn scales the difficulty of the enemies and the greater the rewards, XP, and loot are.
Graphics - 8/10
They arent designed to blow your mind, but instead create a sense of visual style. The graphics have a shell shading effect to them, but not entirely so. Playing the game at 1920x1080 at maximum settings looks great.
CONS
Technical Functionality of Multiplayer - In order to host a joinable online game, you have to change ports and settings in your router. This is extremely odd becuase...well its kinda 2009 and every single game I play online or have ever heard of, has never had something this technically incompetent. Even the days of Red Alert on Windows 95, I never had to do something that stupid. Considering how easy it is to get into a game in any Source game or CoD or even using Games For Windows, Borderlands failed terribly in this department. Even after opening the ports and patching the game there are still people unable to get anything working.
Just how 'lonely' the game feels - Because characters are so lifeless, theres amount no character interaction. You won't grow fond of characters nor will you see them developed. If you play only by yourself, it will be a lonely experience.
Balancing Issues - Some abilities and some character classes and terribly balanced. Some abilities provide significantly larger boosts than its row counterpart. Some classes you can just run through the game with like the soldier or hunter but the siren and beserker are so terribly balanced that it is frustrating in single player to use them.
Complete Lack of Customization - All you can do is change the color of your character, and thats how unique they look... Very shallow character customization.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Borderlands has good and addicting gameplay. Everything you could want in a multiplayer game is here. But the lifeless environment, and technical incompetence of multiplayer just drags the experience the down like non other. There is tremendous potential here, but they have to use it correctly and stop being lazy and shortsighted, and get rid of all these incompetent bugs. With the DLC improving over each release, and with talks of a sequel I hope they get it right.