I was promised something different and I got what I asked for; this isn't your typical First Person Shooter (FPS).

I've received enough day one releases to know when I should reserve my opinion. And so instead of providing a critique, I thought it to be wise to just let those who haven't received their copies, or are on the fence for buying one a little some insight as to what is prominently available to you once you receive your copy of BRINK.

Customization is absolutely limited when you first start out, which I believe to be brilliant. I, for one, want to put in a little work before I can change my "Dude" or "Officer's" underwear. A lot of that can be done through the challenges. There is a tab that says "Challenges", people please; challenge yourselves.

Within the challenges you have to play the role of each and every operative, which again I find to be very rewarding. I did have a mindset to be an "Operative" and play the cloak and dagger dude in the game, but now I'm not so sure. This will give you a great opportunity to investigate further into the various different roles available while you are richly rewarded with experience points and unlocks.

You start out as a "Medium" sized individual in the game and as you progress through getting experience points, you'll be able to unlock a "Heavy" or "Light" individual. This will provide you the chance to see which of the three you prefer but not without first getting to know each one of the three options first.

I'd like to note, unfortunately, a few things that has a lot of people attention here on the forum. Yes, the "bot's" that accompany you through the challenges seem to do things without guidance and/or foresight but, and this is an important remark, you have the option to set up the challenges with three other gamers. Most of us do have at least three friends on our list that will have an interest in an FPS. Team up. (Noted that I know we are have lag issues, again it's day one; barely)

Also, in truth, the graphics are not what I expected them to be at all. I am hoping that it's all going to be resolved within the patch that is supposedly coming into existence sometime this weekend. But that isn't to say BRINK looks horrible; not by a long shot. The game looks good, I was expecting exceptional; I can get over that with terrific gameplay.

In closing ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we are witnessing an attempt to brake the norm. As it has been said before by various outlets, this game is tactical in nature, a game set for us all to work together. Would I like to see a team death match where we all work together to destroy a common enemy? We have that, it's just received differently this time around.

I am defending a position try to break through; I dare you, or I'm going to get through you, defend if you want to but by hook or by crook I'm getting passed you.

Hope to see you all out there in the network soon!

Ok, first of all I would like to commend you OP for providing as far as I can tell an unbiased opinion. That is hard to do with such an easily misinterpreted/debatable game as this one. Here is where i currently sit, and where I believe many more who are reading this forum are:
-I freakin love the FPS genre, I'm a die-hard and I know it. From Doom to Crysis, Bioshock to Cod, Deus Ex, System Shock, Battlefield, You name it. I've played them all
-I have yet to play Brink, what I know is based off of trailers, game play footage, the official website, and of course, forums such as this one
-I did not preorder because of past experiences with throwing my money at poor games when they looked neat
-I have followed brink since that first glorious trailer on day 1, read/viewed nearly every interview and commentaries with the developers as is available, and done all I can to stay up to date with the title
-Lets face it, Im not rich. And there are a [censored]-ton of sweet games coming out this year, but I just don't have the money to buy all of them.
-I know that at this rate the price on Brink will plummet over the next few weeks, that is to say unless something drastically changes in the near future. The poor reviews are out, and their damage is done
-The Brink reviews in general, however, are mixed as hell. Leaving me unable to discern any common pros/cons that people can agree on, people just seem to have strong differences of opinion when it comes to Brink.
-So the only way I can see to form an opinion on Brink's gameplay and lasting value, is to just go out and buy it
-Even with the ridiculous lineup of heavy hitters in the upcoming gaming season, the summer months will be devoid as per usual of any significant game releases. We got DNF and LA Noire thats about it
-Black Ops and Homefront simply aren't going to last until November I'll be bored as hell by the end of June
-The end result is me, futilely trying to decide my opinion on a controversially reviewed game that I've anticipated for a long time. Only I can't decide whether or not Splash Damage has earned my 60$

Just to be clear my message is not directed at you OP, yours simply inspired mine, and perhaps you feel somewhat the same.
I hope that there are those of you who can shed light on this situation, perhaps even share experiences and impressions of the game. But most importantly I would like to make my contribution to this community, as it is one of the few specific-game related forums to survive and continue putting out important threads post-release. So thank you all.

I couldn't agree more with everything you've said. I may be one of the few players out there that do not expect a 100% finely tuned product when it is first released. I did shell out the sixty bucks this time without hesitation in hopes to support a new idea or at least a revamped one to FPS's. And like you, I am anticipating for a great season of fine FPS releases. The more I play BRINK the more I see the point and it justs a lot more fun. Yes, all the guns have the same damage. Yes, the guns don't seem to have great differences except for maybe firing rate. Absolutely, the game looks gritty and choppy but so did a lot of other games before one or two patches were installed and then the visual brilliance would come right out. An example of that would be MW2 and Black Ops, although Black Ops isn't quite visually stunning.

Maybe I have a little too much faith but for now I'm going with the idea that good things will come to those who wait. We got this game a week early and I'm under the impression that we are all running a week long beta for SD. I just hope they are paying attention and hopefully will resolve 50% of the issues we are all encountering. I'd probably be a bigger fool believing that 100% of the problems would be resolved right away but 50% just sounds decent to me.