"DUST is exactly what it is, DUST"
Before I start I do want to say that I have played this game for a full year with 18.9 million skill points into the game. I think it is time for a player's perspective. I will not only evaluate the game but I will also evaluate the CCP moderators for this game. The game will be rated as such: Replay Factor, Gameplay, Updates, and finally Creativity. So let us get into this review!

Creativity: 8.5/10

DUST 514 is or was (keep that was in mind) a tactical first person shooter game that supposed to link up with EVE online allowing PS3 players to affect what is happening in the EVE galaxy. Starting out in DUST 514, you are allowed to create a mercenary clone. Name them, pick gender, race and you are ready to play DUST. This game also allowed the player to affect how they build up their character by building up currency (ISK) and skillpoints to make them more powerful on the battlefield. With ISK players can buy weapons, different dropsuits, modules that can affect your health, other players health, sight, and much more. To make this tactical, every time you die, you would have to build up ISK to make that suit again. Die too many times and you will find yourself low on ISK fast. So I would have to give to CCP when it comes to creativity, they did a good job there. However creativity is never enough.

Gameplay: 4/10

Even with creativity, it is still your average run-of-the-mill first person shooter. If you just now starting out you will find yourself in a training program building you up for the New Eden battlefronts. But after doing 1-2 battles in the training program they deem you ready to play in the battlefronts. You will quickly realize how outmatched you are when playing against other players, especially against players who have been playing since open/closed beta. This is the point where new players decide if they will still play this game or they will move on and play something else. 6/10 times I hear new players giving up on the game and moving onto better shooter games like Battlefield 4 or Call of Duty Ghost. For players that stayed, they go through the slaughter to get the same stuff the vets are using.

Updates: 3/10

Now people will ask me why this scored so low. Yea monthly updates are good and numerous of gamers like that. However they feel untested by the CCP devs. Remember what I said in at the start of this review that DUST was a tactical shooter? This is what I meant by this. Each update CCP release for this game feels as if the game is on a teeter totter. Either it lopsided to the right or to the left. It feels unbalanced. An example would be the Uprising 1.7 update. Before this update vehicles (Tanks) and anti-vehicle (AV) weaponry almost matched each other. People would say AV was too powerful for tanks. Post update it flip-flopped. Tanks are now too powerful. It seems with every update there is that one weapon or vehicle that just dominates for a month until the next update. We, the dust players call this flavor of the month (FOTM) and it does happen with each update. An example of this would be the Uprising 1.3 update where a certain weapon was just dominant for that month. Sometimes there are unnecessary updates. Examples include background scenery. The updates leaves players with a thought that CCP did not test their own updates.

Replay factor: Depends/10

Keeping this one short. New players might go and play something else meaning for them it is a 0/10. For people playing for at least a month or greater, 3/10. For a half year or more, 5/10. Year on up 4/10 because overtime you will grow bored of the game and find something else to play

Overall: 4/10

There was so much hidden potential to this game. But with flawed, unbalanced updates and new players dropping the game quickly, DUST is quickly becoming comparable to dust you would see on the kitchen floor or on a fan. The replay factor depends on how long the player had played the game for and the gameplay for new and incoming players is enough of a turn-off for them not to play this game. I'm sadden by CCP about this, they had a game that not many FPS's could have but with untested updates and the new player base shrinking they shot themselves in the foot on this one.


Reviewer's Score: 4/10