This seems to the most divisive game in memory.

My wife and I have been waiting for this game for a few years now since it was first announced. Even the day before release I couldn't tell you what it was really about.

My personal experience with the game was the first 10 hours are frustrating. It is only when you get to Chapter 3, that the game and world become more fun.

You get upgrades, weapons, roads, and start to connect (make "strands") with other players in a meaningful way. This type of asynchronous alternative to MMO games is actually quite fun and I think could be the start of something.

I will wait to give my final review of the title when I complete it, but I can't debate the first 10 hours of the game. I was ready to quit myself when I was left wondering "if this is all there is, this just isn't fun".

I am definitely having fun with it now and look forward to returning to it every day. I believe my final opinion of the game will be quite high, with some remarks for how it started.

The production of it is first rate, this is a AAA release. It's just too bad it is so divisive and didn't ease people into the world better. I can't blame the gamers.

This review from gamespot talks about the multiplayer, I set the start time for when she starts speaking about it (4:38):

I like this review of the game, it's a positive one, rates it a 9, which is where I'm landing with it right now.

The internet makes it so easy to hate on things, especially when people try new things. As I stated earlier, there is a frustration factor at the start of this game that I wish wasn't present, but overall this game is an achievement.

I'm not going to try to convince anyone of anything with this game, it's definitely not going to be for everyone, but I've been looking forward to getting back to it every day.

I'm 50 hours into the game now, so I have a pretty good idea of what its about.

I did not make this, but obviously I'm not the only one that has felt this.

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Finished the game at 100 hours of play time. We took our time and did lots of side quests.

This is such a difficult game to rate. I would call it an Imperfect Masterpiece. It is a very unique experience, and creates more feelings in the player than most other games (how many games illicit gratitude in you?).

In our end stats, it says we had connected with over 2,000 other players.

Now that we're finished with the story my wife is spending time upgrading roads and structures for other people to use.

There is a built-in device that erodes all structures. Everything rots unless kept up. So a lapsed player will have all their stuff disappear in a relatively short amount of time (weeks maybe). In the few weeks we've been playing a lot of structures are looking pretty rough when they were all nice at first.

It's also not a fully shared world. You only see things from people who you've connected with, so lapsed players would not have a connection with a player from next year. And even then, just because you've created a "strand" with someone doesn't meant you see everything they've done, or them you. Fleeting strands.

This type of hybrid MMO is really innovative, imo.