I thought this was an excellent review, as usual from Eurogamer. They may be the gaming equivalent of junk food, but this quote is a pretty nice summary of the folly of stripping back a Ubisoft open world:
(...)Ubisoft open worlds are not only fun because of their formula; they are their formula. To strip it away isn't like peeling off some old wallpaper to reveal the original brickwork. It's lifting up the carpet to find a whacking great hole in the ground.
I was initially feeling more like you are, but after playing more and watching some streamers play my opinion is slowly changing.
Let's remember that it's an alpha. I agree that snowballing is a problem right now, but I don't think we can expect perfect balance from an early development build. Comeback mechanics are there, but they're maybe not quite powerful enough. They also typically rely on team play and coordination, which is hard to find in low MMR lobbies.
I think the biggest issue right now in terms of snowballing and balance are the flex slots. If you're ever trying to defend a siege when playing from behind you can easily end up with like 12,000 souls as you're successfully defending, but being literally unable to spend them due to having no flex slots.
To note also, is that in addition to Valve magic Deadlock is created by Icefrog - the lead developer and designer behind Dota 2 (and DotA: All-stars for years before that). You can see his fingerprints all over Deadlock, and despite it clearly being at the alpha stage you can still see he knows intimately what makes a good MOBA tick.
That the game is looking as good as it is considering all they've suffered through during the making of it is nothing short of a miracle.
That's fair, I can see that. Certain types of abilities are easier to aim and just work better in third person, too. Like Viscous' ultimate.
Did they formally announce it, though? Yes, it has a Steam page now and the NDA was lifted, but I don't think I've seen any formal announcements from Valve about it yet.
Your Citizen Kane example is great, and another frequently cited victim of the same phenomenon is Seinfeld. In fact, the TVtropes article about it used to be called "Seinfeld is unfunny".
I know it's probably out of convenience more than anything (re-using existing CS assets), but it's interesting to me that it was First Person at this stage and not Third. I've been wondering if I'd enjoy it better as an FPS as opposed to TPS.
I don't see why you're outraged over their reviews of The Witcher 3 and Baldur's Gate 3. In my opinion, those brief reviews in this article are some of the most accurate and fair summaries of both of those games, highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses of each in a way most people don't. They conclude that both are worth playing, but also bring up commonly cited flaws in each.
Going off those two reviews alone makes me more inclined to trust their judgement, not less.
0% critics recommend? Damn.
I disagree. The perception of how the game is set up changes the more you play. At first you think it's 75% MOBA and 25% shooter - mostly a MOBA. But the more you play the more you realise that that 25% shooter part is disproportionately important.
Deadlock adds an entire layer of complexity and skill on top of the MOBA: three-dimensional movement, mouse control, crosshair placement... The amount of movement tech alone is wild, and will be insanely important for high calibre play. It will appeal to an entirely different type of player.