There’s probably been many similar posts to the one I am making, but I just wanted to add my two (Sweedish coins) worth. 
What I love about the game:
- It is definitely a challenge if you start completely fresh, using only whatever weapons and tools are available as you explore the map. You definitely have to be more tactical about your approach to even Runners. I love the feeling of getting a more powerful weapon, and then on top of that, getting a higher quality version of that weapon (and its attachments) later on down the road.
-I love that the devs added some NPC’s to the game. Before, the archipelago was so dead, with the story only being told through notes. It’s nice to have other characters talking to you, even if it is by radio as they stay in their spots whilst you (and your team in co-op) explore the land. (ARK Survival Ascended could learn from this.) I like Therese. She seems like such a sweet kid, given to a little whimsy. She calls her bike “Miss Bikey”. I wondered if that was a bike that she’d had since she was a little girl, or if she is just a whimsy at heart. Heh… at points where I return to her final staying place, I’ll just walk in to check on her, even though no conversation can be struck up once you’ve set about your missions.
-I love the open-world. This is definitely a massive game in terms of land scale. Fast-travel points do make the game seem smaller, but then again, as with any open-world game, after a big battle that may have been far from one of your safehouses, who wants to trudge back only to potentially fight more enemies as you try to make it back.
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I love that they added to Runner Companion. It is very useful. I have mine configed to Rocket Launcher, Scanner, and now Stealth Cladding Armor… very useful in fights against tanks and larger machines…not so good against Tyrants and Rivals. Also, petting the machine, or making it play dead never gets old.
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I love that I can relax with this game. (Then again, I also find ARK Survival Ascended relaxing, but maybe that’s because I never tackle to ARK portals themselves…LOL!)
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I love that the game lets you take sometimes creative approaches to battle. Especially in the base assault missions. (If you have Hacking unlocked as your Specialization, it comes in extremely handy during base assaults…especially, if you are playing an FMTel mission that requires you to take down a base using only a specified weapon…and there are loopholes to that. If an FMTel Mission says to take down a base with a submachine gun…well, you can still use a melee weapon (my fave being the Pitchfork) to take down walls, just so long as you don’t use it offensively against any machine). I remember having to take down a base using grenades. Sadly, the RPG (RLG-7) and the Grenatgevehr do not count, even though technically, their rounds are called (loosely) grenades. So, just hope you have more than enough hand grenades to do the job. And remember thou thy Pitchfork, to make walls holey.
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I love that it is generally a persistent world. If you have heavily damaged a machine in battle, but then get killed and are forced to respawn, the targetted machine doesn’t just heal up and you start from screatch. You go in fresh, and face the machine at its current damage.
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I love the co-op, except for the fact that my friend cannot use my field radios, nor can I use his. But, the co-op focuses well on the team effort. If you and your partner split up to take down a tank, constantly changing up its aggro to confuse it is a great way to take it down, not to mention the skill of flanking the machines and doing greater damage to it.
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I Love the Hacking skill, although sometimes it can be problematic, even if your target has a high vulnerability to Hacking chances. The only time the Hacking doesn’t work is in base defense, but I suppose that’s understandable. It’s always a great feeling when you can Hack a Wolf, or a Harvester, or a Tank, or especially a Phoenix. Then, wackiness ensues.
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I Love that the storage is shared, ala Resident Evil, but it does sometimes become a nuisance, especially if your utility Flakmoped is actually driveable.
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I Love that the game will store your weapons from a previous playthrough (assuming you had the foresight to store them in a storage box), and then when you create a new character/ world, the weapons you stored will be there for your noob charger to use. It’s a sort of New Game+ Lite
What I Love Not: -
I Love Not that it doesn’t allow you to sleep to heal like most other open-world games,. but I also understand why. It is a persistent world, and time passes the same for every player. Beds, beds everywhere, but none to catch some winks.
_ I Love Not that the Field Radios aren’t working as advertised, IOW, not allowing co-op players to use the field radios to respawn after they’ve fallen.
- I Love Not that some crafting is extremely expensive. Understandable for higher tiers of Augmentations you might make to your weapons, but crafting base defenses gets ridiculous sometimes.
This has long since reached TL-DR point, so I’ll stop here.