Alright...
What a ride. So I went back home yesterday at around 6:00PM Eastern Time, about three hours after it was unlocked (on Steam that is). I played from that moment until just about ten minutes ago, I think I took just a small hour break within all that time, so I played a good nine to ten hours in total, until I reached Level 20 in fact. I must say that I haven't been playing a game almost non-stop that long... in a very long time. It's very addictive, but there are numerous "issues", some of them technical, others in terms of game-play (and then it comes down to personal preferences at that point, of course).
Negative (so far):
º I had to download a third-party program (nHancer) to enable A-A, as others have mentioned I don't believe that the PC platform was the basis of development, it's a port. Is it the end of the world? No. Is it acceptable? Certainly not (not because it's a port, what's unacceptable is the absence of in-game A-A), even if it's a port, and that's the point, some bad ports on PC do have A-A in-game options. Well, at least it does have A-F available, such a relief! But, seriously, I thought «alright, let's just force it via the official NVIDIA's control panel», well that didn't worked, having to rely on third-party software to enable A-A in a 2009 game, console port or not, to me is unacceptable.
º The default "forced" Field of View is too small (I think it's 75, I'm not 100% certain) for the majority of PC gamers in 2009, most of the monitors today are such display ratio and high resolutions that most of us can't stand that, even for me, because I still game on a 19" monitor, the default FOV was still too small, so like everyone I had to go and temper in the game's files to actually enable it (it's not even present in the game files, you have to add a new line in one of the configuration .INI files). At least the "manual" method works, but the whole point is that we shouldn't have to do that manually in a PC game today, but Borderlands is not alone in this case, FOV is unfortunately one of those often-absent in-game option out there.
º The enemy variety is cruelly lacking, from what I've seen (after a good 30+ side quests, two "main" bosses killed and four explored zones). There's approximately four or five base races (Bandits, flying creatures, Skags, crab-like things in one cave), and from those there's about four or five variants of them. I guess it's alright... so far. But there could be some improvements I guess. It's not a "very bad" point in the game, but I definitely noticed it fast enough, and it's not necessarily pleasing either, I just feel that they could have done something more "generous" for that part of the game, maybe I'll be seeing more variety later on, I hope so, but at least the Bandits are fun to fight against.
º The famous 87 bazillion guns stuff... alright, let's make it clear. I, for one, think that Gearbox advertised it in such a way as to make most people believe (I'm part of them, I admit) that each and every single weapons could be very different (A.K.A "unique") from each others. Well, each and every single guns I've found so far didn't have the exact same stats, that's true, and it's working as intended. But the actual variety of different basic gun types is very meager. There's the shotgun, the sniper rifle, the sub-machine gun, the revolver/pistol, grenade, missile/rocket type... and well, that's pretty much it, I might forgot one or two at most. What actually varies is their color/stats and some gun parts being there or not, such as a scope for instance. Is it fun? Hell yes, but I feel that the whole "procedural" stuff seemed perhaps like a big-meaning word when in fact it's just not even on par with a game like Diablo 2 for instance.
º The actual loot type is very lacking, even if I knew about it before playing the game from all the previews and reviews, it still feels underwhelming overall. By that I mean that there's almost only guns to find, outside of the rare artifacts (and well, of course, the ammunition and the grenades, alright). I know lots of people will disagree, but even if it's just in first-person-view I would have loved to see more loot to find to increase the differences in game-play per character class and per character build, and per equipped gear as well, but that's actually what lacks here, gear. There's no armor, no mask/helm/headgear, no boots, no belts, no extra apparel (pauldrons or whatever)... for a game that claims to have RPG elements, that part of it is actually weak. Even if we wouldn't get to see how the characters look like with the gear on, at least it could still provide stats-increments and increase the variety in game-play, there would have been so much potential, and it was wasted.
º Virtually no vehicle customization, outside of choosing between two weapon types (mounted machine gun or rocket launcher) and the color (even just one uniform color). It's disappointed for that.
º Barely any character customization, but, yeah, I guess because it's just a FPS we didn't need that.
º Just one single class-specific skill. I would have preferred more, because outside of that specific skill and the character model itself there's not much difference in terms of game-play, there's even weapons proficiencies increasing under all types of weapons for each of the classes. I'm playing as Lilith right now, and I'm actually ruling the land with Sniper Rifles... go figure. They should at least restrict each class to very specific gun types (I mean not restrict to "use" them at all, but restrict proficiencies of them), Mordecai should have the Sniper Rifle type in his weapons proficiencies screen, not Lilith, and Brick shouldn't care about most guns other than Rocket Launchers, and considering that Brick's class-specific skill is to go around on berserk mode punching enemies but that the game doesn't even offer class-specific weapons (for instance a special spiked glove or something along those lines for Brick and helping increasing his punches' damage and even moves or animations) I think that there's been a priorities-mix during the brainstorming phase of the development or something.
º The A.I. Well, it's not very bad, it's just... bad, overall. I mean I've seen worse, yes, but that was about ten years ago. To have primal-like behaviors from the Skags, fine, no problem, it fits them, they are animals, and they are savage, cool. To have kamikaze-yelling-muted-masked-midgets-turned-bandit-and-crazy like A.I behaviors is also fine, it honestly is, in fact there has to be some very basic A.I around to force the player to back-pedal and force him/her into direct, brutal face-to-face dangers, yes, or else we'd pretty much always camp, shoot, crouch, get up, shoot... it'd get boring. With that said, there are serious A.I issues out there and I've seen a few ones during my game. The most obvious one is some Bandits standing still, obviously "stuck" in a "I just spawned but I don't know where to go but I'll still keep yelling at the player because I know he's here" loop. It reminds me of the famous STALKER "let's follow each others pointing our guns at the sky and yelling at the player but let's no move either, that way he won't notice us" A.I problems. And outside of actual code-related A.I problems, their "intelligence" in some cases, either done that way by Gearbox or not, is seriously lacking when it shouldn't, and that's the big point here. The bosses are pure idiots, no different than the charging Skags most of the time, or they just walk around gently waiting for you to head-shot them constantly, or they don't move, literally. It could have been much better, but I actually question the very capacity from Gearbox themselves to actually "make it better".
But... outside of the negative points, it is a fun game. The exploration isn't bad at all, the quests are generic, yes, but I don't expect much from RPGs' questing in general especially the bigger they get and the tougher it is to differentiate them all and make everything unique enough, it's certainly possible, it's been done before, but I honestly don't see the very context of Borderlands to offer very unique quests. Anyway, and the loot-hunting, and character leveling is certainly the major factor here that makes it fun. I guess it's what makes the RPG genre so popular and so resilient over the decades of gaming we've been through. However "bad" many game-play elements can be, if as long as you've managed to create a loot-hunting system that despite its simplicity is addictive you'll pretty much score good enough in most people's heart and they'll just keep coming for more, at least until the game's quests are completed, if that's a minimum. I mean even if you keep the leveling system in, but remove the loot-hunting part... it turns out quite generic, if not downright boring. I haven't seen everything so far, obviously, I still have thirty levels to go, probably more than a hundred side quests to do, a good bunch of zones to explore, I haven't even touched the co-operation yet.
So far however I would score Borderlands a solid 7.5/10. It's more than passable, and I've seen much worse FPS games out there since the past couple of years. It's fun, I can perceive some inspiration from BioShock as well in the game, such as the vending/trading machines and how after each zone you enter you have them nearby at the "entrance", and also when you use those machines you have a guy (who sounds like the guy in GTA IV, the main character's cousin I think) talking and advertising the whole thing. I can also see some Fallout inspiration, obviously in the wasteland-type of environment, but more subtly seen in that little talking robot and the icons of it, its icons have him in different poses and equipped differently in the exact same manner as the Fallout's Vault Boy icon. And then there's the Halo inspiration, with the way the shielding system works, or how much limit you have in carrying weapons. I mean, Gearbox haven't taken its sources of inspiration from bad games, and then they haven't build their own unique game features on top of all that without passion, it shows in-game, they wanted to create something that would feel unique on its own. It does, but there are glaring problems that pop up here and there that are so obvious. But, yeah, overall, it's quite a good game, I do not regret buying it at all and it was certainly well worth the $35 price point I've put for it (4-Pack deal on Steam).
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention something quite important, perhaps. After those ten hours or game-play or so, I did not experience a single hitch, freeze, stutter or crash, it's extremely stable, but that had to be expected since it's running under the UE3 engine, and all the other UE3-based games I own are almost entirely stable (and take note that my system is not over-clocked, at all). And while I'm at it, I play with all in-game settings maxed (there's not much to "max" anyway), at 1280x1024 ("19 monitor oblige, CRT, limited by refresh rate, etc, yes I know, it's temporary, don't ask why, I'm awaiting for a new LCD soon), 8x AA (nHancer), 16x AF, and I run at a good 45+ FPS constantly, it's very smooth, even during heavy action moments (and there's plenty of those believe me).