Okay...first of all, here is a litttle introduction. I bought 3 copies of this game, one for Xbox 360 from Amazon, one for PC from Steam, and one for PS3 from Gamestop. I have followed this game for over a year, and have been, and still am, one of it's biggest fans. I bought the strategy guide. I doubt there is anyone on this forum who has spent more money on Brink products than me. I am one of the most hardcoe fans this game has. I generally like this game. But the singleplayer has one really, really horrible problem, and I have to point it out: the Artificical Intelligence of friendly NPC's is just plain broken.

Let me give some context to this statement: I have played on Xbox 360 and P.C. Steam so far. I leveled a Character from 1-20 using just Singleplayer. He is primarily a Security Engineer, but I ultimately did both campaigns, fully, on normal difficulty, along with all challenges. I then made a second character on the P.C., a Medic. I also made a operative character on the Xbox 360. I switched to other classes as necessary to win matches.

The A.I. of friendly NPC's is just plain broken. Period. The fundamental problem with it is threefold- the first is that friendly NPC's will hang around outside an objective area running back and forth for no apparent reason instead of running to an objective. If there is an objective to be gained, I am often forced to run into the area by myself, with no backup, because my NPC allies would rather hang back and do nothing instead of following me, or for that matter doing anything useful. The second problem is that friendly NPC's are absolutely horrible in a fight-even if I manage to kill half the opposing team- 4 of them singehandedly- the remaning 4 NPC members of the opposing team will easily kill all 7 NPC members of my team. This happens consistently on normal difficulty.

The third and final problem is they simply will not secure an objective. I am often forced to switch to another class than the one necessary to complete an objective in order to wipe out the opposing team surrounding an objective. But even when friendly NPC's on my team are standing right next to the objective, and are the correct class to interact with it, they will still run around in circles, when no one is shooting at them and no enemies are in sight, instead of interacting with the objective. Here is one example: on the refuel level, the airport one, I was fighting as the resistance, on normal difficulty, at the point where you have to hack something as an operative, and I had to switch to a class other than Operative in order to storm the objective. I barely succeeded. All security personell were dead. There was 40 seconds left on the clock. There was an operative class NPC in the room, standing 30 feet from the objective, literally running around in circles, doing nothing, rather than hacking the damn objective. No one was shooting at us, all security were dead....and he was just running back and forth.

This is not challenging. This is luck. I have no control over whether or not friendly NPC's manage to do their job competently, and this game is explicitly designed so that players cannot be a one man army. It is explicitly designed so that you rely on your team. But the A.I. is inherently unreliable. A challenging game tests your skill. The singleplayer of Brink tests your luck. You have no control over whether or not NPC's on your team will do their job or not. And I am tired of failing through no fault of my own.

Does anyone else agree with my points?

Only the third one. The AI is meant to let you "be the hero" so yes, that involves completely the objectives by yourself. The AI will help you secure the area around the objective if you don't give them any other choice (complete other side objectives, follow the AI around and kill the stuff for them so they don't stop moving as a group). As time narrows down, the AI start focusing on the main objective more, but they won't do so at first. Use that time to gain map control as best as you can. I've beaten all levels on normal and some on hard difficulty and I've not yet had a problem with this strategy.

The AI are weaker than the enemy because the game is trying to force you to advance forward in order to have your allies advance forward just like any other normal campaign. When you die, you get set back because your allies usually die with you. When completing objectives, make sure you stop (particularly while hacking the surface missile as Security) to kill the enemies that show up in the area again (it's not difficult, they are often not firing at you).

I fully agree with your statement above were i understand that the challenges for the escort and the tower defense are hard. The (be more objective) is just plain ridiculous along with the single player campaign. The only way that i see this being fixed is if the Friendly comps either become completely player oriented, by that i mean the friendly comps follow you around like lost puppies gives you buffs you need and target enemy's that target you and them. That's the first way and honestly doesn't really go well with the whole focus on the team rather than lone wolfing it. The other way for them to fix the AI is to have them completely ignore the player within reason of coarse. By this i mean the AI will do its own thing with the other AI's mostly it would be a bot fight with the player assisting when he or she can. This would mean that the player wouldn't get any buff's from friendly AI and would mostly be playing a very linear game play shoot enemy bots to protect yours. These two ways are the only ways i can see the single player campaign and challenges becoming reasonable enough to actually complete.

Have you done this mission at level 20? The Enemy AI becomes more difficult as time goes by. At high levels, they are aiming at you, with ridiculously high accuracy, and your own teammates are often incompetent. While many singleplayer games try to make you be the hero, in this game it is not really practical as far as I can tell. I run around trying to take care of side objectives, such as capturing and holding command posts, and I often still lose, just because I can't be everywhere at once and my NPC teammates keep getting killed.