A Borderline Recommendation for Borderlands

There are some games that I absolutely love and will publicly laud with no apologies (the Mass Effect trilogy).  Then, there are the games that I loathe (Spelunky and roguelikes in general).  It's more difficult for the games that lie somewhere in the middle.  The Borderlands series has always been set firmly in my "meh" zone.  Since I recently played through the magical episodic adventure Tales from the Borderlands, I had a weird hankering to go back and replay the Borderlands series.  I'm 95% done with Borderlands and am ready with a fresh perspective.

When Borderlands originally came out in 2012 it seemed to contain some exciting new concepts.  Yes, it was going to be a shooter, but it was also going to be an RPG.  This seemingly strange combination of two unlikely genres peaked my interest and I added it to my Steam library.  I don't think I've revisited it for at least five years...so, it has been awhile.

This time around I decided to play as Brick since I had played all the other characters.  Playing as melee oriented characters in a shooter is probably one of my least favorite things to do and I think I've had the least fun playing as Brick.  I had way more fun playing as Lilith or Mordecai.

Pros:
--Quirky humor and characters.  This is the main reason that I've stuck with the Borderlands series over the years.  There's always some whacky, weirdo who wants to send you on a quest to rescue their pet skag or retrieve their increasingly zany lost audio diaries.  I can truly appreciate the dark humor and weirdness.

--Character choice that offers enough variety for replayability.  Each character has his/her own playstyle and can be even further personalized through the RPG talent points system.  You can also find character mods that enhance your chosen abilities scattered throughout the game.

--Co-op multiplayer that is built around the four main characters.  I've only ever played with one other person, but it's very apparent that the characters were designed to take on a sort of traditional RPG multiplayer role--Brick is the tank, Lilith is the healer/magic user, Mordecai is the long-range specialist, and Roland is the support specialist.  I've always been intrigued by the idea of having tougher enemies with better loot as you increase the number of players in the game.

--Tons of loot.  If looting is your thing...there are boxes, lockers, chests, lockboxes, toilets, garbage piles, dumpsters, skag piles...I could go on, but  I'm going to stop.

--Gun variety further adds to personalization of your character.  Each character has certain talents that are oriented toward a certain type of gun/damage.  Brick, for example, has one set of talents that increases the amount of rocket damage he does (I hate rockets...so didn't take that one).

--Large variety of equally depressing environments.  Pandora is clearly only for the desperate.

--Variety of enemies to shoot.  Bandits, rakk, skags, bugs, Crimson Lance....tons.

--Minimal Claptrap.  Thank baby Jesus.

Cons: 
--I'm going to call this one identity crisis.  The idea of combining a shooter and an RPG was kind of awesome.  The execution of this combination is, well, a bit lacking.  The shooter aspect of the game isn't as good as other games that are purely shooters.  Shooting stuff just doesn't feel as fun.

--Loot wheel of failure.  I've found myself frustrated at the loot drops.  It feels like the only loot that drops is at least five or more levels below the level of my character.  Rarely do I find a gun that is of a similar level...and then it's usually a type of gun that I don't really want to use.  When you don't find decent guns for a good chunk of time it can make for a lot of dying.

--The run-around.  I always try to manage my completion of missions in a logical order that cuts down on the amount of travel.  Finish off all the missions in one area and then move on.  Many times throughout the game I've found myself finishing off missions only to then get a brand new bundle of missions for the same area!  This is something that has driven me bonkers throughout the series.

Borderlands is a game that I neither love, nor hate.  It's entertaining enough that I can keep playing, but I just don't get as much of a sense of satisfaction that I do from other games.  If you love shooters, there are better shooters out there.  This goes for the RPG aspect as well.  As a result, I can only cautiously recommend Borderlands.