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Dark_Pulse: Borderlands for me was a game I'd anticipated quite a bit from when it was first announced. Gearbox had hyped it quite a bit, and needless to say once it came out I was anxious to see if it could live up to the hype they had promised us. Fortunately, this was the case.
You're dropped off immediately into a world full of colorful characters and plenty of humor. Whether it's Dr. Zed ("Who needs a REAL doctor when you have my machines and their scary needles?") or Scooter (Who has a fascination with talking about his "Momma's girly parts") or even the bosses ("Meet Nine-Toes; also, he has three balls") you get the sense that Gearbox tried their best to create not just a memorable world, but also memorable characters, and in that sense they've definitely succeeded. Most characters "sound" their part, which adds even more to their charm, and you won't help but find quite a few memorable lines from many of the people you'll run across on Pandora. That said, though, Borderlands is certainly not a story-heavy game. Indeed, the missions you're given can feel a bit repetitive. This could be simply too repetitive for some people, and is one of the game's notable drawbacks.
Borderlands has a ridiculous amount of guns, and the drive that "Maybe I'll find something better" seems to never go away. When I first began, the glowing highlight of the night was finding a shotgun that fired rockets, complete with an item card the game stating "Holy crap! It shoots rockets!" The variety of weapons adds an element of strategy, requiring you to decide just which you're packing; especially early on when you can only carry two at once.
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The characters are all balanced and fit their roles well, and players who specialize will find plenty of incentive to do so. My first character was a Soldier who was a combination of team doctor and gunner, and he was quite effective in not only keeping himself alive, but my teammates as well.
While it can be played solo (and is quite enjoyable even then, surprisingly) this game really shines when you've got some friends to play it with. Four-player Borderlands is a blast, and there's definitely gameplay incentives to get friends to play with you, which makes the game's extremely fussy networking through Gamespy very disappointing and frustrating to go through, especially since the name people will see in-game is your login instead of your chosen character name. Why even allow it to be customized if only one person - the player - is ever going to see it?
The art style helps bring elements of the world to life. Overall it's pretty good, but there's some spots where you can tell they stretched out some painfully low-resolution textures onto very large items, which is a bit of a downer. It should look nice on any PC with a decently high-end graphics card and even lower-end machines won't look too bad. Expect Borderlands to perform just as well as other UE3 titles.
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Sound effects are great. The guns definitely got some real kick to them from the sound, and you'll hear plenty of hilarious death cries. (Try using a corrosive weapon on some baddies - you'll hear them scream things like "AGGGGGGH, MY FACE, MY FACE! ARRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH!") You won't find very many weak-sounding guns in Borderlands, and usually if you do, it is guns that actually ARE weak. Your teammates will wisecrack during events such as finding a new gun or getting headshots, and it really helps drive home their own personalities as well - no silent protagonists here!
So does Borderlands have any downers? Well, there are a few. For example, I'm forced to relaunch the game every couple hours due to a technical issue causing degradation in performance over a period of time on certain machines. Second, there have been only two patches since release consisting mostly of bugfixes rather than improvements. Third is the DLC itself. The cooler stuff like banks which allow you to store weapons and the increased level cap makes them less optional and more "Stuff you need to experience the game fully"
Does that mean you should stay away from Borderlands? Absolutely NOT! The game is still fun as hell and I fully feel like I got my money's worth. You'll have a blast playing with your friends (though random people online might be a different story) and it's great fun to just run around with a bunch of badass guns and tear up enemies. The game's definitely getting its share of DLC love and I'm sure there will be another patch down the road, so if you want a mix of FPS and Diablo, and are sick of other 4-player Co-op titles, Borderlands should be a pretty good purchase for you.