Seriously.

I get people telling me a new Dust build just came out that's supposed to smooth out the gameplay and fix the lag.

Wow! Really? Maybe this game will be fun to play after all! I open up Dust 514 for the first time in months and download the patch. This game has had several builds to get things fixed.

Upon opening my dropsuit selection the game begins stuttering. I feel like I'm running Crysis on a Super Nintendo as I attempt to perform the simple task of editing my loadouts, a feeling I've had since I was invited to this beta half a year ago, multiple builds ago. Hell even before logging into the game the flyby over the spaceship at the character selection screen was skipping frames every 5 seconds.

Of course after stuttering through the menus I already knew what to expect. The game plays no differently. Micro-freezes are a regular occurrence and the framerate is never stable as the outdated PS3 hardware struggles to load the ultra-HD industry standard 16x16 textures of Dust 514 that you've become so accustomed to. I get hit from 2 miles away by an invisible sniper hiding in the hills in the outskirts of the map. I hide behind a supply depot and, **** you not, wait about 10 seconds for my shields to finally recharge, before coming out only to get shot at by another sniper hiding in the most remote regions of the map. I'm having so much fun already. I love getting shot by invisible people who are invulnerable to taking damage (did I mention that the max range of assault rifles is about 3 meters?) then waiting half a minute just for my shields to recharge again!

Capturing objectives is still a slow and tedious process. The second a heavy spawns you know you are screwed because the ridiculous rate of fire on their guns drop you about 14 times faster than you can drop them (giving the most armored enemies access to the most powerful weapons is a great idea!). You can't see anything other than a pixelated hologram in your face and can only hope that nobody spawns behind you as you wait about 4 minutes to capture an objective.

Gunplay sucks. The large open maps combined with the lowish amount of players makes finding a fair fight difficult. Players have so much health that it takes about 2 hours to kill somebody. The animations are awkward and slow and you feel like an old man running through jello. You sprint at turtle-speed and a couple bunny hops are enough to completely drain your stamina. The maps are a barren wasteland, not only making the snipers more annoying but turning CQC gunfights into a spray-n-pray tango between two players until whoever happens to be using the better gun finally gets the kill. Even when you do manage to find decent gunfight with a similarly equipped opponent in an area that actually has some well-placed cover and are at the most optimal distance for your weapons, you're probably gonna end up getting shot at by some invisible sniper up in the hills.

So disappointing. I actually prefer playing Call of Duty over this. Hey, it takes no skill but it's still fun, way more exciting than this game can hope to be. Dust maybe takes a little skill (little, VERY little skill, and I'm being generous), but it's not fun. It's not fun at all.