I just wanted to make this thread (I don't usually do this) to bring a conversation my friends and I have been having a lot lately regarding Destiny to light (no pun intended). But before I get to that, we have to establish two things here as a community of longtime fans and longtime gamers in general, that no longer seem to be just opinions, but FACTS about Destiny. #1: The game plays great. It is a wonderfully designed game from a visual standpoint, in regards to the flow of its mechanics (besides a few very annoying bugs here and there), and in its accessibility to players. It is hard to say the game is unenjoyable, and if you can manage to say so, you're probably reading this with Dinklebot begging you to come out of your pause screen to blast that Minotaur that's screaming at you. It's addictive, and if not fun, enjoyable. #2: However, Destiny FALLS SHORT. Since the initial release, players have been scratching their heads in bewilderment of how much is missing from this game. And worse than that, Bungie keeps releasing these promising announcements of new activities and content that are coming our way, from the small things like the Iron Banner or the bigger (less small?) The Dark Below expansion, only to get our hopes lifted, then smashed violently into the ground like a Fist of Havoc once we've reached the end of the content, still wondering where the Destiny we all got hyped for went. This is the company that made Halo. HALO. Sure, the first one started out small with just a campaign and basic multiplayer, but after YEARS of learning and practice, they built in such interesting features like Forge, in-depth Custom Games, Firefight (Gears of War "Horde" that we all secretly wanted Halo to have) and even a Theater mode. While I agree that this MMO/"shared-world shooter" style is new to Bungie, it doesn't explain the general lack of things to do, which may have been forgivable if they were extremely immersive ones. But, the few activities we can take part in are small and repetitive. And on top of this, if we don't wish to take part in any particular activity and just free-roam (patrol) to see what kind of trouble we can get into with our fellow Guardians in the wild, the planet areas are just plain claustrophobic -- I expected a shared-world shooter to have a bit more... world. So after establishing all of this, I'd like to get down to what my friends and I talk about amidst our late-night firefights, if we ever muster enough interest to turn on our consoles. It's disappointing to see how much is missing from this game. There is no story incorporated into this game, although we have read rumors of there once being an acceptable amount of story/content, until Bungie's lore developer's work(as well as the work of other devs I'm sure) was ultimately gutted by Activision, who is more or less known for being a contributor to the ever-so-stale Call of Duty series. Now before we get ahead of ourselves, there is however, LORE. This game does have an interesting lore (yes I've read the Grimoire Cards and the interesting Reddit fan theories), but it doesn't give us as the player and our bad-ass characters a story; a reason, a connection for it all. But, this is not the main focus of our discussions and criticism. We mostly talk about the developers. Bungie, and of course, their new lovely (sarcasm, for those less adept in its detection) partner/publisher Activision. We talk about how they are handling the community's disappointment. What has kept us at bay is their ability to leave us a trail of candy, hoping we get stringed along like the content-hungry gamers we are. My friends and I have ourselves been fooled plenty by their weekly updates and the excitement promised with them, but the most recent deception has been the actual expansion itself, The Dark Below. Aside from criticizing the new armor/weapon leveling system it brought, we discuss how we these companies have been keeping up the illusion that we are getting MORE when, we are in fact getting much much LESS than we've hoped for. The amount of content, even after the expansion, and presumably after the next expansion as well, House of Wolves, is disheartening. We tend to blame Activision more than Bungie, as we believe that the developer's themselves still contain some of the drive and creativity they had during their Halo days, and that their new partnership has been squeezing their shoulder when it comes to how to deliver this game to us players. Could it be that this game was once much, much bigger? Rumors say yes, and the pre-loaded content for the DLCs also hints at something. If not, the universe this game has built for us is very small, and we have all been shelling out money in hopes that it would get even just a little bigger, which it barely has. HELL, a friend of mine informed me (you can confirm or deny) that the developers of The Witcher series gave their fans like 16 FREE DLC items and gameplay content pieces just for being such awesome fans, and we should be left wondering when Bungie will do the same, or stop Activision from pulling our leg and give us the world we deserve as loyal fans, not just consumers to take advantage of. Feel free to add on below, and to read IGN's review of the DLC, which I feel reflects this topic.