After finishing the story and letting it sink in for a bit, I have to say I like it. That isn't to say there aren't problems with pacing and some plot developments coming out of nowhere (Quiet leaving, Truth), but overall I enjoyed the ending and the twist. I know for some people, the trailers hyped up the game to be something it wasn't, but I learned a long time ago not to trust Metal Gear trailers, though I do think the marketing for this game was brilliant. For the first time in the series, what we saw in the trailers was what we got, curbing expectations in that regard yet at the same time it hyped up the "legend" of Big Boss with marketing like "THE MISSING LINK", " MEN BECOME DEMONS", etc. And that marketing ties in with the overall theme of the game. Metal Gear Solid, and Hideo Kojima by extension, has always favored the meta when it comes to themes, and this is probably the most meta game in the series since MGS2, though unlike 2 it isn't about the expectations of sequels and the main character (Raiden) throwing away the player's control. It's the exact opposite. It's about Venom/Ahab/Medoc embracing his role as Big Boss instead of throwing it away like Raiden did. And the twist works in that regard because [b]the gameplay is the story[/b] in MGSV. All of our actions and experiences in the game contribute to the legend of Big Boss. "I'm Big Boss, and you are too. No, he's the two of us together." We, the players, are Big Boss and all of our stories that we have to tell are grandiose, personal, silly, fun, contradictory, and simultaneously true. But while we build up the legend of Big Boss, we also learn that John, the man behind the legend, isn't all he's cracked up to be. And that is another theme of the series. Remember in MGS1 when Solid Snake tells Meryl or Mei Ling that "the reality (himself) is no match for the legend", or how in MGS2 he tells Raiden that "legends are stories passed from person to person"? We see that in this game; Big Boss' phantom (the player) is the one doing all the work and spreading the name around while the original, John, is content with sitting in the shadows and taking the credit. The "real" Big Boss' actions highlights a very gradual descent into villainy, one that started at the end of MGS3 when he refused to shake the President's hand, followed up in Peace Walker by him forcibly kidnapping soldiers (including children) in order to conscript them into his army and building a nuclear weapon, and finally in Ground Zeroes where he hides said nuke and orders the destruction of all documents pertaining (that is not what a hero does). In the Phantom Pain, he becomes exactly what he hated and fought against, a manipulator hiding behind the scenes influencing events just like Zero/Cipher/The Patriots. He goes along with the plan to use an identical body double (and that double did not consent to the plan), whereas before he split off from Cipher due to the Les Enfants Terribles project. He puts an entire hospital in jeopardy, and mostly everybody there dies for the sake of the plan. He lays down his weapon and stops fighting, the very thing he criticized The Boss for doing at the end of Peace Walker. To put it simply, John is a coward and a hypocrite. He is not what the legends build him to be. To be continued (?)