Rage is gorgeous but this date is all looks and no soul.
Shockingly, Rage took over 5 years to develop and it makes one wonder where all that time went towards because as far as depth in content, Rage simply doesn't have it where it counts. Sure, the game takes 15-20 hours to complete, which by today's standards is a long campaign, but much of that time you are doing repetitive, uninteresting fetch quests for dull, uninteresting NPC's. Sure there is some decent weapon building aspects, but it doesn't add the level of depth you would hope for.
Rage is an VERY Linear experience. I was one of those people who looked at Rage as sort of a Borderlands type game when I looked at the previews and hype but unfortunately is really isn't an open world game like that. Sure you can drive around at free will and do some very minimal exploring but there isn't much to do in the world of Rage so exploring is a bit pointless.
The enemies in Rage are a bright spot. They are wild, and unpredictable and can be tough to defeat if you play on the harder difficulty settings but overall Rage is not a challenging game.
The story seems more of an after thought. It feels like it was written to accommodate an already predetermined art style rather than acting as a guide for fully flushed out fantasy world. It ends abruptly and really is sort of a non-factor throughout the experience and that hurts it dearly towards the end of Rage's campaign as I was left feeling unsatisfied because the game feels shallow and repetitive, and basically just unfocused.
The Multiplayer part of Rage isn't FPS but Car combat / Racing. It is fun but also a shallow experience after a few play throughs.
id Software is known as the father of the FPS but I'm afraid Rage is yet another example where Jon Carmack and co have simply failed to evolve. They have seemingly focused 90% of the energy in making Rage a gorgeous game to look at and they certainly succeeded in doing that. Unfortunately they paid little attention the story and the characters and general setting of Rage and what you get is a game that feels antiquated in many ways.
Rage isn't a bad game, it just isn't a great game either. It didn't draw me in and make me want to play more and more. If anything I was going through the motions in the last quarter of the campaign. It is worth renting but certainly not worth buying. I expect graphics whores to slobber over Rage but gamers with a lot of FPS experience will probably find it disappointing after all the hype from id software.
7.5/10