So much potential wasted.
At this time, i have yet to finish the game, however, that does not excuse the drearyness you have to experience sometimes in the first few hours. It really is mostly just a straight up run and gun style game, nothing more, nothing less - puzzles are ridiculously easy, and i'm struggling whether puzzles can actually be called that, since they might aswell have been called "annoyances", since they do nothing but slow you down a little bit.
Despite all the fanfare about the new features Prey offers, like said portals and gravity play, are all wasted on the already mentioned drearyness of the actual gameplay. Most of the time it's pretty predictable aswell, too predictable in fact.
See that wallwalk path? You can bet your life on at least 1 enemy portalling in on that path in front of you, always.
See that wallwalk path that you have to enable? You can bet your life on it that an enemy will portal in and disable it at least once before you can move on.
See that forcefield? You can bet your life you have to go spiritwalk and flick the switch that's just on the other side. of it.
Flipping gravity? It's just there for you to make a path of - there won't be any enemies untill the end of that sequence.
They have the technology, but make everything which involves it ridiculously easy. It's so much wasted potential - the 'new' gameplay they advocate is just a gimmick on the side, at it's core, they just made another corridor shooter with some enemies in it that you have to shoot down. Shoot your enemies, shoot them again, shoot the next enemies....
They should have gone for more interesting puzzles involving gravity and portals, aswell as offer some more non-linearity. As the GS reviewer mentioned, portals might aswell have been doors. Why not offer several ways around a level through different portals, or other ways out? Why block the portals that enemies spawn through constantly and not let players pass, even if it's just to see where they lead? Maybe even give them the ability to make portals themselves.
Then the gravity - there was the potential for truly Escher-esque levels in there, and truly 3-dimensional mazes. Instead of making really mindbending enigmas, they simply listened to health and safety and made the game safe to play for epileptic people, as it were... Too safe, in fact. I'm not insulting anyone here, i'm just trying to make a point.
The game does offer some "WOW!"-moments, like the first time you get into that little glass case, or some of the scenes in the very beginning when you enter the sphere. But those moments are very, very rare.
Last but not least - the look and feel of the game. As i said before, the developers did not cash in on the new gameplay technologies they implemented. Now, all Prey feels like is Doom 3/Quake 4 with some new gimmicks, and whatever way you want to twist it, it's not a good thing.
So much potential, so much wasted...
Don't get me wrong. It's a decent game, it has few real flaws, the problem is, it could have been so much more than just 'decent'. Lets hope the mod community will make some more interesting changes to how the game works than Human Head has.