A mind blowing game that just about lives up to the hype.
The graphics are insanely good. The enviroments are easily the most gorgeous ever seen & the character models are also of the highest quality. The visual quality will obviously depend on the players hardware. I first played this on my old PC with a 7600gt & a single core machine & the card simply melted & had to be binned. The minimum you'll need for high settings & resolutions is an 8800gt for DX9. Anything less & it's medium all the way. If you fail to meet an 8800gt then my advise would be to get shaders on high & lower other settings accordingly if you can. (keep physics on medium always though). Shader settings improve visual quality the most I found.
As well as amazing graphics the game plays pretty sweetly also. When you finally land on the island & begin your journey it's wow factor all the way. One of my favourite scenes is when the sun rises for the 1st time & you stomp up a hill & see the sunlight filter through the trees. You then get to use the excellent nano suit to complete your tasks. One minor criticism of the suit on higher difficulty settings is that the cloak function is so useful you end up being over reliant on it. If you go in charging chances are it will be game over very soon.
Weapons are well balanced & sound as you'd expect & explosions from grenades are as booming as you'll ever hear in a game. Plus some of the automatic weapons can mow down the trees which can kill an unaware enemy just as quickly as gun fire. Also each weapon you equip will have add-ons available like silencers, laser sights & flashlights to name a few. This helps to add further tactical options to the situation at hand.
The first two thirds or so of the game will involve you dealing with the Korean army. The final third has you trying to survive against the aliens & fleeing the island. At times the first two thirds of the game did sometimes feel very much like playing Far Cry with a nano suit & the enviroments are'nt as open ended as we were led to believe. When you get to the alien habitat the gameplay changes. It may be down to opinion whether these sections were as good as the jungle sections but the different pacing will take a while to get used to. I've played through Crysis twice now but I find I lose a bit of interest in the game once i reach the alien lair. Once your out the lair however it's a mad dash to escape the island through areas of the jungle that have become bathed in ice.
Though Crysis is a truely great fps i found quite a few minor annoyances. Enemy AI is just rubbish, but then again AI is always rubbish in single player games so thats no surprise. I also found the aliens to be less than impressive. They're not horrific or memorable enemies in my opinion. Not up there with Doom 3 or Gears of War quality bad guys. Also the single player is a bit on the short side though a solid multiplayer helps make up for it.
So in conclusion i would say Crysis is the game it was hyped up to be...just. Was maybe expecting a bit more from the single player but the fact that i'm on my 3rd play through is an indication that this is one of the genres best.