I've been a massive fan of the EVE franchise for years and was waiting with baited breath to get my hands on Dust 514, being an avid console FPS player (Halo, Battlefield) and a PC gamer to putt, what I've experienced over the past few days has been an utter disappointment.

Huge lag problems, with players glitching around and a general fps constantly dropping to noticeably stuttering levels, not to mention the massive system lag spikes that freeze the game for up to 5 seconds at a time. For this reason alone the game is often impossible to play, and that's before getting in to the incredibly clunky and horrible controls. For an FPS game I can't believe how annoying the controls are. This is one of the prime reasons the game has quickly become nothing more than a constant annoyance. There seems to be a combination of bad/delayed controls and really iffy hit recognition that makes attempting to play with any amount of skill pretty much mute.

I have decided to play as a scout class, and such have poured all my skill points and learning in to this path. Since doing this it has come to my attention that the scout class is pretty much useless, the sniper rifles either don't cause enough damage or the charge takes way too long, coupled with the TINY hit reticule and the necessity for literal pixel fine accuracy to get a shot on target (not forgetting the terrible hit recognition and clunky sluggish controls). If my intention is to keep skilling up with the scout class to a point I can actually use decent equipment, my role is forced in to very long range engagements with sub par equipment, the necessity for pixel fine accuracy with over bearing scope sway, a comparatively low damage output, long gaps between shots and only a very small chance to hit someone amongst them glitching around the hit not registering, or them turning and shooting me, wiping me off the face of the planet before I've recharged my shot. My only option then is to switch to another class, playing with bottom tier milita gear while dumping all my sp in to the scout skills

For a game that promotes it's self as one you can 'play how you want to', my choices are already incredibly limited and influenced by factors out side of my control. I have become certain that you simply can't carry the ethos of EVE online's 'play how you want' perspective over to an FPS game. Especially not in the way they have attempted. The nature of EVE's combat works well for specific customizations and is balanced beautifully, this is largely due to it's 'numbers' nature and that it is a point and click affair. An FPS game works on very very different laws and what CCP have tried to do either isn't possible, or they've failed miserably at attempting it.

To be honest the game feels largely like a badly designed money trap, with BUY AUR splattered everywhere you look, the majority of named modules AUR only with no option for player trading or simply charging much larger amounts of ISK for the same named modules, to the "Look what you COULD have won (if you bought an SP booster... for more Aur)" at the end of every match. I can't help but be aware of the insidiously capitalist undertone shrouding the entire game, which is in it's self honestly horribly designed anyway.

CCP obviously have no experience making FPS games, they should have gone in to partner ship with a company that actually knew what they were doing. It really saddens what the reality of this came has turned out to be. I'm holding up very little hope for this game to see much life beyond a year, 2 at most, unless it drastically changes and addresses it's many, many flaws. It simply isn't up to par with any other current game on the FPS market. It's utter insanity when you take in to account that CCP pretty much requires a large and active player base on Dust 514 to be the other half of the integration with the EVE universe on PC, the way things are going, they're going to have very very big problems on their hands when this thing falls flat on it's face.