Don't explore Pandora without a friend or two
You can choose from up to 4 classes, each of them has a single special ability that you will be using often since it doesnt cost anything to use, except the cooldown for reuse. There are no additional spells or skills to use, you can only fire your guns and use you class ability. At each level you get a talent point to spend, much like Blizzards titles like Diablo or WoW. You have 3 different trees to chose from, but all of those give you passive boosts like more experience, faster fire rate, more elemental damage etc. You get more health at each level up but have statistics of your own, instead you depend on you guns attributes.
Items are color coded for rarity, but it doesn't necessary mean they will be stronger if they are rare, it depends on the items level and attributes you might feel you need. You can play with up to 9 weapon types, pistols, revolvers, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and eridian weapons. The amount of different weapon looks is impressive, you will get a new weapon at every step, and each of those will have a unique look. You can equip 4 weapons at the same time and switch between them with hotkeys. There are also grenades to use which can be modified to do elemental damage or explode on contact, bounce around or cluster in many pieces.
Elemental damage plays a big role in combat. Fire damage deals extra damage over time once the enemy is set on fire, electric damage takes down shields faster but isn't as effective for taking down health, and acid element that actually deals corrosive damage is effective on heavy armored enemy types. Explosive damage seems to effective mostly everywhere. Each gun you find may contain elemental properties, and each is made by a different manufacturer. For example some make weapons with a higher rate of fire than others, so if your'e looking for a specific attribute it pays to keep an eye on the weapon manufacturer. You score critical hits by hitting an enemies weakspot, headshots for humanoids and some beasts, while other might have weakpoints from behind.
Ammo is different for every weapon type and does not take inventory space, it is also quite cheap to buy, but can be found anywhere to loot. You can summon a vehicle to help you traverse the maps. There is only one vehicle type to create, but you can choose if the gun should be a rocket launcher or a machine gun (which seems to be useless btw). Creating a vehicle is free of charge and can be done on almost every checkpoint. When your health reaches zero you fall down and start bleeding, you can still aim and shoot, if you manage to kill someone before you bleed out you get a second chance and get up on your feet. Your partner can also revive you if he is nearby. The penalty for bleeding out is a certain percentage of cash, and a respawn at the last activated checkpoint..
There are about roughly 100 quests in the game, which require you to venture in the wilds and attempt tasks like collecting weapon parts, taking down a specific number of enemy types or interacting with some kind of machine. Each quest you track is shown on your map and compass to give you a hint where you need to go. This gives the game a more MMORPG-like feel, and unless you're playing with friends it can turn out to be a repetitive grind, especially since the story isn't anything extraordinary, but it can still be great fun. DLC packs are pretty long and can last up to 5 hours each, so be sure to check them out if you like Borderlands.