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Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 965 Ratings

  • Summary: As the first title in an all-new sci-fi action franchise, Borderlands combines the best elements of Gearbox Software's first-person action titles with player customization and vehicular combat. Borderlands features a unique content generation system allowing for near-endless variety in missions, environments, enemies, weapons, item drops and character customization. Borderlands is a cooperative experience, allowing for multiple players to share the same game experience simultaneously online. Players can freely join or leave each other’s games at anytime, or choose to play in the full single-player mode. Borderlands features life-like character animations, impressive real-time physics, and customizable vehicles. More details to follow. [2K Games/Gearbox Software] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 34 out of 37
  2. Negative: 0 out of 37
  1. Fast, fun, and unapologetically crass, this is the best game I’ve played in a long time, and is truly deserving of the moniker “role-playing shooter.”
  2. Original, visually attractive and unique, Borderlands won't leave anyone indifferent and will be a treasure for those who enjoy its innovative style.
  3. A good FPS and a good RPG come together to make an excellent game. Or FPSRPG if you're being fancy. [Dec 2009, p.86]
  4. A deeply flawed yet passably entertaining co-op genre mash-up. [Christmas 2009, p.52]

See all 37 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 40 out of 282
  1. THE GOOD: a loot drop system like Diablo II--never thought picking up guns in FPS can be so addictive. Graphic design suits story well-- a crazily funny and insane world in cartoonish graphics. 4 characters with different strengths and upgrade directions. Co-op with friends is easy and fun. THE BAD: The story is just a complex sequence of missions, which means it's hard to really care or even know what is going on. Little to no interaction with NPCs. Wish it had more types of enemies (dogs, big dogs, even bigger dogs, fire spurting dogs just gets old fast). Expand
  2. Diablo with guns and a sense of humor. The landscape and the enemies can be a bit repetitive though the DLCs go a long way towards adding much needed variety. Vehicle combat while interesting isn't the greatest. Characters and weapon variety are some of the best you can find. This game shines best on multiplayer. It is easy enough for casual players to pick up and the random item generation is highly addictive. If this included alll the DLCs, the game is worth a 9/10. Expand
  3. When I first started playing this, it seemed like Fallout 3 but more cartoony to me. But pretty much everything other than the environment was different. I found the main quest quite fun, but once I got to the side quests, it started to get boring because one after another, it was either kill this guy, or kill this guy and bring back this item to me. And it kept getting boringer ang boringer until I couldn't take it more and just totally stopped. I found the game enjoyable, but it just got old after the main quest. Overall, if you like just playing the game's main quest or just enjoy repetitive side quests, then you would probably enjoy this game. Expand
  4. 4
    This game is a very fun shooter, but with flaws. I'll go over the good first. The combat is entertaining and a touch different than other shooters. You get to tweak your character with different abilities to make unique builds which change how your character plays. The game randomly generates weapons so everything that drops is unique and a possible great find, it keeps you looking for loot. These things make it fun to play and the graphics are done in an art style like animation cells which I really like, it looks superb. The bad things bring it down however. The game scales terribly. As you do quests and gain exp. you will level too fast and quickly become too powerful, tearing through groups of enemies far too easily. A second play through with tougher enemies is possible, but not fun. You will start much higher level than foes and there is no challenge. The game is lacking several graphics controls on the options menu, which is stupid because the devs put the coding for the controls in the files, they just didn't make buttons. You will have to edit the .ini file yourself to turn on things like v-sync and get a widescreen point of view. Very lazy on the devs part there. Instructions for doing this are easy to find and it's not hard to do, but I shouldn't have to. So, overall Borderlands is a fun game that ends up being far too easy to play and has some basic setup options missing, but obtainable with manual editing on the users part. Expand

See all 282 User Reviews