Not bad for 15 years of development...
Duke Nukem 3D came out After Wolfenstein, after Doom, After Doom II, After Quake, AFTER QUAKE II. Duke 3D had worse graphics than even Wolfenstein but what really made Duke 3D the legend it was is Duke's personality and the funny one liners, it was the fact that even though it was working from a weaker engine the game was still fun and funny and that's what really mattered, It still matters now.
Duke Nukem Forever has been in development for 15 years and in that time much has happened for better or worse the entire gaming landscape has changed, 6 Halo games were released, Military shooters are the new norm, casual gaming has become a genre......
Duke Nukem Forever is in some ways a relic of a forgotten age, For a game with such a long development cycle this is actually a good game. Here's the thing I wasn't expecting perfection, I wasn't expecting some profound statement on the meaning of life or anything, I just expected......well not exactly what the game is but this kinda goes beyond my expectations.
Duke now has an Ego bar that represents his armor, he can only carry 2 weapons at a time not including thrown items, the game sports a mix of on foot, driving and stationary or on rails turret sequences. Each sequence is done well, I've seen a lot of first person shooters do this same thing and fail miserably but DNF does it quite well. The game also has areas where you aren't in combat kinda like safe zones in these areas there are a lot of interactive objects like in Duke's strip club there is a pinball machine, a Whack-A-Mole game [with a twist] Air Hockey table, Basketball free throw challenge and pool tables, all of these items have their own physics and again I've seen stuff like this done before in other games and fail miserably but DNF pulls it off impressively.
I'll admit that at times some combat situations can be annoying like with the teleporting aliens or just the barrage of gunfire without a pause but on the other hand I'd still rather play this than a lot of other games......
Basically you have to ask yourself if you want to play a retro style game with a few modern advances.