I played CoD4 on Friday/Saturday, and just finished ~4 hours of Crysis (not met up with the aliens yet).
PC Gamer Holiday 2007 FINAL VERDICT: 98%
Highs: A graphical powerhouse; immersive, open-ended sandbox that encourages emergent gameplay; well-paced storyline; meticulously detailed; engrossing multiplayer; included map editor.
Lows: Alien enemy AI not as spectacular as North Korean AI; enemies can sometimes absorb too much damage; a few minor glitches
Bottom line: Destined to be a classic, Crysis is a creative and technological marvel that eclipses every other shooter released this year.
I will address the highlighted points.
1. It's not really a graphical powerhouse when things pop into view at a very close distance. I will admit it could look nice provided you have very good hardware (I am running an X2 4200+/2GB RAM/7800GT on a 20" monitor at 1680x1050 with everything on "low"). But after playing CoD4 (the game I will be mostly comparing it to) I must say it is nothing spectacular. Sure it has large view distances, but much of the far away stuff is pretty low detail (partly due to my settings, I will admit), but there is nothing that makes it seem "wow" in terms of graphics, especially when I have to run everything low to get a reasonable framerate.
2. I am only 4 hours in, but to be honest I have found it pretty slow. The story has not grabbed me at all the way the CoD4 story did (I think the cut scenes and little bits in CoD4 worked incredibly well with the story, and the pacing was better than Crysis because it wasn't broken up by loading screens), but it's still an interesting story so far, although as I said, it hasn't really gone anywhere or done anything interesting so far. I am also not sure where the "meticulously detailed" part comes into play, unless the mean the general game world, which has lots of stuff in, and sometimes you come into a really cool room, but it's nothing spectacularly new.
3. Enemies can withstand far too much damage. Partly because of having just played through CoD4, I expect people to die after 10 or so bullets hit them, and far too often they really don't. Sure, one hit kills from headshots is included, but apart from that it's incredibly random. I can shoot 10 bullets into a guy and have him live, and then shoot another guys legs 3 times and have him die. Doesn't make much sense really, and kind of reduces the quality of the gameplay.
4. Creative marvel. I am not sure how. It's pretty much like Farcry was, it doesn't offer a huge amount over what FC had. It just seems like new story, new engine, same gameplay mechanics. Now that's not really a criticism of the game, but it's not like they broke more new ground with this game, they just took what they already had with FC and updated it.
5. Not really sure where "technological marvel" comes from, but that might be because of my limited system, but it doesn't seem like it's "omg wow this is so new and has loads of things never seen anywhere else", especially when you consider all the UE3 games coming out, things like CoD4 (again) etc etc.
Now, my biggest problem with Crysis is that I just played CoD4, which totally spoiled me.
Many of these things are little gripes, but they also should reduce the score, since they are little issues which could have been avoided, and some are bigger issues which really make you think "is this really next gen?".
Right from the off Crysis was REALLY annoying. They have (like in the demo) a series of unskippable videos when you start the game. REALLY annoying. But you can get over it.
Then you click "play" and they have ANOTHER annoying video which is like a promo of what's in the game, and advertising for EA/Crysis to say "we made this game". THEN you get the first loading screen, followed by an in-game cutscene which starts you off.
CoD4 on the other hand, was wonderfully sweet. The startup movies can be skipped, cutscenes can be skipped etc. The loading screen in CoD4 occurs while you want a little FMV cut scene before the game, rather than staring at the static image you get in Crysis. A much improved system in CoD4, and something which should be the standard. It means loading screens are less of an atmosphere breaking experience, because you aren't kicked out of the game to see a random screen that breaks the immersion. CoD4 felt like a more fluid game because of the loading screens/FMV IMO.
Obviously not everyone will necessarily have the same thoughts on just this small aspect, but after playing CoD4 it's hard not to miss it.
Penetration. Where the hell is it? I shot a guy 4 or 5 times using a shotgun through some wooden banisters, and didn't kill him. Guys tried to shoot me through plywood and din't kill me. This game really seems to totally lack penetration, and it's hellishly annoying, expecially for a supposedly next gen game. Again, sorry for this, but CoD4 has penetration of walls etc, and it makes you use this fact in the game, and it's really good. In Crysis I have been frustrated on multiple occasions because I couldn't blow the guy the other wise of a piece of wood to bits using my shotgun.
Also in a similar vein, environmental damage. It's the same as 90% of other games, you can't destroy the environment! Sure, you can blow up some explosive barrels, and chop down some trees, but when I fire a missile at a large tree, god damnit that tree should DIE (by large tree, I mean the ones that can't be cut down with gunfire). Same goes for vehicles hitting most things, like signs, or barriers at the end of the road. They just get stopped, you can't plough through them. Again, this really reduces the "wow awesome" atmosphere, and makes me wonder where this technical innovation is supposed to be.
Physics wise it's also rather imperfect (although this may be due to my low in game settings) with ragdolls doing random things all too often, especially when bodies pile up in the same spot, as well as things like hitting in game objects in vehicles, and bouncing off (which I just mentioned).
One final thing, which is a personal annoyance, is the subtitles. I watch a fair amount of subbed anime, so I am used to subtitles, and I turn them on in most games, but in Crysis the timing of the subtitles and the layout is REALLY bad. All too often you have a sentence said by one of your guys, and it gets broken into 2 lines, with the second line maybe containing only 2 words. There is only one line shown on screen at a time of subtitles, which seems silly to me, rather than allowing 2 lines and doing maybe some form of text wrapping. It just bugs me every time subtitles come up (if you play with them on you will probably notice what I mean), although this is a really minor complaint, and won't affect most people, since they probably don't turn subtitles on anyway!
Now obviously I have been pretty critical, but one reason for that is to show it really doesn't deserve a 98%, because it just has too many little flaws that are not seen in other games, and which really shouldn't be there. I think it's a great game (so far), and the fact that you can sneak through missions and only kill 10% of the enemies, or you can spend ages and kill them all offers some nice variety. There are a lot of different ways to approach each mission, and so you probably won't do the same thing as another person, which makes it pretty cool.
It feels a lot like Farcry, but with a different story and new engine, which isn't a bad thing, since FC was a pretty good game (until the mutant bit which was a pretty big let down after the start). It has a reasonable amount of variety (although it's also quite repetitive), but it is definitely an enjoyable experience.
As far as it goes, SP to SP, I would say CoD4 had a more interesting, immersive and exciting single play campaign, BUT I am only ~4 hours into Crysis. CoD4 also had the major issue of its single player only being about 5 or 6 hours long, and only time will tell how long Crysis takes me to complete.
It's a good game, but it's nowhere near 98% good, because it's doesn't feel as polished or innovative or exciting as it should. It is still very much worth playing though.