I really don't get the complaints that the first blahblah hours are boring. I was totally engrossed from the very beginning and it was the first game I've ever platinumed. I played on Hard, took my time, explored and looted at every chance, and treated every encounter with the fear and caution it deserved.
In the beginning every single zombie is a major threat but as you progress you'll eventually be gunning down vast hordes with ease. Don't go in expecting to be running and gunning like an FPS from the very start and you might actually enjoy yourself. Days Gone is 3rd favorite game this year behind Ring Fit and Death Stranding.
The game's pacing is just all over the place, and the first 10 horus are the worst part of it. It tries almost immediately to give the player the "feels" without it feeling earned. TLOU did something similiar, but even ignoring the massive difference in the quality of the scripts, TLOU is a much leaner game that can be completed uner 14 hours, whereas DG is at the very least 30 hours long.
It's really the 3rd camp where the game feels like it actually begins. The storytelling finally becomes much more straightforward, which results in a lot less clunky & jarring moments. The game finally trusts the player to go on longer, more complex missions.
But then towards the end... it breaks again. By the time you finally actually end up liking Deacon and having a good time with the mechanics, the game slows to a crawl right before the final couple of hours. What bothers me the most as well, is how absurdly late the hordes are "officially" unlocked to the player - by the time it became an "activity" logged in my quest menu, I cleared at least 3 hordes, but of course they didn't count because the game didn't consider them an activity yet. Because of that, and the fatigue from the poor pacing, I ended up only doing the hordes needed by the story. Which is a shame, because clearing hordes IS actually fucking fun as hell, and shows DG at its absolute best. But again, it takes like 25 hours to get there. Which is pretty crazy.
