My real beef with the game is that it isn't intellectually engaging at all. The gun play and such is a 11/10. I do enjoy it. Read on for my frustrations. A few comparisons: Mass Effect (dead horse): I get to play the massive campaign at least 2 full times: Renegade and paragon to get a full range of different voice acted dialogue options. The classes are also very different. Game to game you can have a blast playing completely different ways through the same fights. Different weapons and skills. Way different experience. Guild Wars: all characters are at least on screen during cutscenes. Why am I watching a co-op mission as if I'm solo? Why isn't there a lick of dialogue inside the VoG? Can Atheon at least come out saying "Destroy. Destroy. Destroy." For fun? Last of Us: story. Cutscenes. Thought provoking scenarios. Granted there's no decision to be made until the end, it's a freaking ride and a half. The writers deserve their awards. Destiny: about 10 minutes of continuous dialogue with my character in it. No choice, just some bland uninspiring conversations about light and dark. The joke lines about "I don't have the time" and "I could tell you" are insulting. I WANT to put the controller down and be told a story. That story should make me want to kill something, or defend something. That is the intellectual stimulation I'm talking about. The story should drive the players actions (at first). Certainly you'll want to play because it's "just plain fun to kill stuff", but that story needs to be there to anchor the whole thing together. After the shock and awe settles from a well defined story, the game mechanics need to be solid enough to be replayable (many times over). Let's go back to Mass Effect 3 for a minute. The multiplayer supports the single player campaign! The multiplayer effort is taking place parallel to the main game so it makes since. Why are we fighting each other in the crucible? Training is a pretty weak answer so I hope that isn't the case...There's miles between Destiny and ME3 so I'll try to leave it alone now. Let's talk about WoW for a minute (just a quick one): Throughout the world there are hubs. Several of them in fact. Places to meet and interact (that's a key word: interact). There's an in game chat with multiple channels so interacting is pretty easy. Destiny's tower is a waste of time. Interaction is laughable. Its painful thumb-stick-clicking players, opening gamer cards to send messages, using the on screen keyboard to type "Raid?", then submitting for everyone you see (or using the screen from your menu. Either way). Warframe added a chat window. They figured it out. I'm not a big Warframe player, but that's obviously a benchmark requirement for player interaction without opening voice channels. What about borderlands, Fallout, and GTA V (also dead horses): NPCs located all over the maps. Finding new NPCs, seeing their splash screen intros, hearing their voice overs (OMG Claptrap is king) and doing their missions made the game feel more organic. Destiny defaults to a lifeless robot/chalkboard that gives you most of your post-game missions (bounties), and a phoned in boring monologue for all of the rest. New missions just open up on the map when you complete an old one. Story intros and out-tros are short monologues read off screen. We couldn't get a motion captured story intro to more than a couple missions? The Skyrim, GTA, Red Dead, and Fallout series all mastered the art of interesting patrols. Bungie should take note for Destiny 2. While cruising the maps you'll randomly encounter 1 of MANY different side quests. It's so much damn fun to just happen on an event in progress and complete it. I'm referring to the single player campaigns, but this model could still work. Each of those games had its own way of spawning random events, but they helped draw the player into the world and atmosphere. Ever stumble on a band of robbers dragging a woman away by horseback (Red Dead)? That sense of "Oh crap!" Is very real and engaging. Skyrim had exotic bounties. Ever find a stone in a cave that spoke to you? It leads you to a statue that turns into a beautiful sun sword. That quest was really cool and I just stumbled into it while roaming around. Destiny's public events and patrols try to mimic this, but it's pretty flat. Wow a tank is being dropped off!!! Oh, it happens every hour. Nothing bad happens if you skip it. Why are there no NPCs in the ENTIRE GAME WORLD to interact with? There's a crashed ship on earth, but no guardian to rescue? No refugees? No rebels or bandits that are trying to claim their own stake on Old Russia? So much potential when playing in a world with this much detail. The maps are so beautiful, but way too empty. Patrols are just poo. Dead Orbit wants stuff killed. I kill it. I get Vanguard rep... Wait what? I did the patrol FOR dead orbit. Why don't I get rep for them too? Clearly there are vanguard patrols, but the factions don't make sense. And why isn't there a story behind the factions? I should be rooting for my faction based on ideology, not colors alone. It's just 1 more reason that the game shows sign of struggle. I'm wanting depth. The current platform is just really wide and shallow. I don't think the hell mouth will be deep enough for me (no innuendo intended). Yes I've loaded tons of hours into Destiny. I will return. I'm just shelving the game for a bit. House of Wolves may see my return. Don't think of this as a whining post. Please. I'm just comparing it to some design concepts that I consider a bench mark to good story telling and open world-ish storytelling. [spoiler]Holy crap this is long. Sorry. Hope someone read it all :/[/spoiler]