A nicely presented package that unfortunately lacks depth.
You play one of four character/classes. Standard all-round shooty guy; long-range sniper, close-range pistoler guy; explosives and boomsticks tank guy; and elemental proficient (and coincidentally the arguably best single player choice) girl. The overall goal of the game is to find the legendary Vault, a rumoured treasure trove of wealth, but the main plot is barely existent and when I say barely existent I mean . . . Well it's not like other games where you may say the plot is forgettable, or shallow or that it simply offers a reason as to why everything is happening without really making you care . . . In Borderlands the Vault could be replaced with quite frankly . . . Anything. A rumoured alien gun, or the secret of eternal youth, or the worlds most delicious cheese-wheel ,and it would not matter. The game features maybe 5 10 second cut scenes (barring the opening) to introduce major characters (major being used loosely as the characters are as interchangeable as the plot) and any thing else plot related is translated to you by voice transmissions or text boxes. To be honest it seems like Gearbox would have been happier just to have you choose missions from a menu, flash-game style, and ignore any storyline whatsoever. To its credit, the characters themselves are both enjoyable and well played out (both in acting and writing) and the game occasionally has a humorous quality but ultimately they are both as relevant and existent as the plot.
The case itself describes Borderlands as "Action RPG meets First Person Shooter" and this is true, assuming First Person Shooter then drugged Action RPG, dissected his corpse, surgically grafting the bits he liked to himself, then dissolved the rest in acid. While the game uses RPG elements, and presents the bits it uses well, it fails to incorporate many of the essential parts of an RPG to the point where I am reluctant to call it an Action RPG/FPS hybrid, but rather an FPS with RPG elements added. It misses the marks of a more-than-shallow plotline, complex (or at least present) characterisation and a living, immersive game world, but brings a deep and complex loot system, slew of nevertheless enjoyable content and a simple yet brilliant character progression system.
So the game basically plays as: get missions, go kill guys, turn in mission, sell loot and repeat, and yes, the game is rather repetitive in this sense. The environments rarely differ from the sun-scorched, barren wasteland variety, and there are only a handful of enemy types which are more often reskinned then redesigned. Stronger marks and major bosses are less outstanding, skilful battle and more just dudes with more health and better weapons.. To be honest, playing the games by yourself is a rather empty experience . . . Which segue's nicely to the games main selling point - its 4 player co-op.
Up to 4 players can play together (1-2 split screen, 2-4 system link, 2-4 online) increasing both enemy strength and numbers, quality of loot drops, and potentially enjoyment factor. The game is fully playable in co-op and if that's not your style than competitive play is found in both mano-a-mano duels and 4 player arenas located throughout the game, though both these systems are both rather redundant and rudimentary with no real purpose or benefit to it. Ultimately though I find it hard to rate a game highly due to good co-op. Once I did get a game together with three friends and it was substantially more fun, but the rest of the time my experiences with random game searching were about as enjoyable as squirting citrus acid in my eye, not to mention it was a pain in the ass trying to join games without getting kicked due to connection issues or just having problems with plot progression.
Overall though, the game is well designed and presented. The visuals are quite beautiful and one of the best examples of cel-shading I can recall (comparable to 2008's Prince Of Persia). Gun play is solid, satisfying and smooth and the constant upgrading and gathering of new and better equipment makes it very satisfying to watch your new incendiary SMG shred through enemies. As already said, level progressing is simple but works incredibly well, and the ability to reallocate all your earned skill points at almost anytime for virtually no punishment is quite frankly brilliant and to be honest my absolute favourite aspect of the game as small as it may be.
With little plot or motivation playing the game alone is quite repetitive and empty. You wont find yourself getting lost in the game and you may not be playing for long or frequent sticks. You may even occasionally feel like your being punished for choosing to play solo but you wont feel cheated out of the money you payed for the game. For me it came down to more of a feeling of "Was it worth they money I payed -yes. Would I pay it again - no". Of course all that said, there is the other side of the coin where if you've lined up a friend or more to play co-op with, I'd be hard pressed to recommended any other game to fill that niche.