This is a really good point:
We're spending so much time defending that it's ok to enjoy a game that isn't a masterpiece, that we're not giving it enough props for the things it does genuinely well.
Before I give this opinion, let me make it very clear that I think God of War as a whole is a much stronger game than Crackdown 3. Even in a pure "which one I'd enjoy playing more right now" way, as I adore the combat and exploration in God of War. It's simply moment-to-moment greatness, even without talking about story or presentation. With that out of the way, Crackdown 3 does progression and levels in a way that is more meaningful than God of War.
In God of War, you'll find a purple enemy with a skull next to it, that means that if this enemy touches you, you're gone. If you get your level high enough by equipping better gear, the skull will be gone and the color will change. Now the enemy is not as much of a sponge and it won't kill you in one hit. Same moveset for you and the enemy, even your damage numbers are similar from, say, late level 3 and barely starting level 4, but just because the level number changed, now the artificial gating is gone and you can play the fight as intended. You're not progressing in any meaningful way by leveling up, you're just removing bullshit.
In Crackdown 3, as said in those tweets, your actual capabilities change as you level up, it's closer to God of War's skill tree than its level system. The first area has a couple of orbs that are placed in ways that probably expect you to come back later, when you have a higher agility level, but if you're persistent you can just get them anyway. The game won't try to stop you. It gives you the geometry, and if you can climb it without leveling up, good for you.
Leveling up in Crackdown is its own gameplay loop, you need to overcome these little challenges to find and collect the orbs, and by getting better movement you can tackle harder challenges to find and collect more orbs. In God of War you just switch your gear and continue playing the exact same way. It's not interesting in an action game, skillful way, as you didn't get better to overcome the challenge, and it's not interesting in an RPG, incremental development way, as you didn't get new abilities to help you overcome the challenge. You just switched your clothes and the purple bar with a skull disappeared.
You could argue it encourages exploration and fighting optional enemies, but because they have to account for players who only rush through the main path, you'll always run into the NPCs who will sell you gear that is just good enough for that part of the game. So you never really need to explore and fight for better gear, looking cool is a better incentive for getting that Valkyrie set than the stats.
The Wrecking Zone trailer was really good to be fair, much better than the campaign ones. Maybe that's where they had to spend the time, to make sure it quelled the naysayers and masked the poor framerate!
Didn't even download Wrecking Zone, I honestly have no interest in the multiplayer at all. I'm interested in seeing numbers though, maybe I'm just part of a vocal minority and the multiplayer is actually more successful than the campaign due to game pass and the lower download size.
