Positives:
- Money is far more abundant, the player no longer needs to be frugal
- Support Items can now be added to the support 'wheel' from a large stockpile of items, allowing the player to build up a surplus without overflowing their interface
- The handling of wheeled vehicles is far more responsive and satisfying, and each vehicle actually seems to have a suitably weighty feel
- Weapons in general are more satisfying. Some are even reliably accurate
- Visuals are quite good, though perhaps not 'excellent', even for its time
- Explosions are very gritty and satisfying
- Transportation is rarely ever an issue. Helicopters can be bought quite easily and if all else fails you can instantly catch a ride to friendly faction bases for a token fee
- The player can utilize a GPS-like routing feature by placing a waypoint at their destination, though this feature is occasionally buggy
- There is a lot of fun to be had by messing around with the big helicopters and the enormous weight they can carry
- Some of the lines by the main characters are legitimately funny
Negatives:
- The player receives repetitive radio communications from Fiona /far/ too often. They quickly become grating and ruin what comedy the voice overs may have provided. I actually disabled voice overs more than once simply to get some peace and quiet
- The draw distance for infantry and vehicles is suspiciously low. This hints at sloppy graphics disguised with a band-aid solution. Consequently, sniping is basically impossible (targets simply do not appear at a reasonable distance)
- Enemies are basically omniscient, eliminating any possible interpretation of stealth. Getting away with treachery has more to do with being fortunate enough to find and kill all the enemies before they can radio for help than applying any amount of subtlety
- Enemies armed with explosive weapons fire wildly at the Mercenary, even when their fellow soldiers are in melee range with them. In a select few situations, these imbecilic buffoons can even destroy the very structure they are standing on, killing themselves and generally making an enormous mess. This is particularly infuriating when trying to pacify oil rigs.
- Faction relations are basically trivial. Although being friendly is desirable, working for more than one side at a time is frustratingly difficult. The only reason this isn't an obstacle to success is because it is fairly economical to buy your way back in their good graces. And earning the ire of a faction causes little else than their troops being hostile. Siding with one faction or another has basically no effect on the story
- The whole 'vehicle disguise' thing is improved, but not in the way that matters most: the player is still automatically disguised whether they want to or not, meaning they can either drive around honking their horn all day or risk running into the wrong faction and getting their ride blown to pieces
- The ability to force occupants out of your vehicle was removed...I haven't the slightest idea why
- The story is entirely lacking in motivation. Instead, the player acts out a frivolous revenge streak which falls back on stereotypes beyond what could be considered tasteful
- The co-op experience is restricted to online-only. Therefore, I haven't been able to play it since I refuse to pay a subscription to Xbox Live on principle
- Friendly AI have the hardest time imaginable trying to get into your vehicle. This is contrasted with Mercenaries, where they had little trouble with this
- Money is a bit too easy to obtain. It quickly becomes superfluous, at which point fuel is the only resource that requires maintenance
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