holy shit i can't believe it but they actually did it. a borderlands with good FPS gameplay. like almost rivalling D2 good. you can't quite "feel" the impact of every little perk like D2. but the general perk design is just different, in fact a lot of perks are more wholesale impactful than subtle gunfeel changes of D2 style, which is a lot of fun - like the underbarrels and weird shit like throwing a weapon instead of reloading. the ricochet launcher attachment is crazy strong.

the movement is just so seemless, dodging and sliding and gliding without interrupting key animations like reloading. and you can sort of "bunny hop" and keep a lot of momentum after dash/glide. i understand the criticism in some videos that melee and grapple are the same buttons, but i think bad players overstated it, the icon clearly closes in to show you getting in range (although grapple is a bit limited yeah)
the ordinance slot is great, even with all the heavy weapon options i'm actually just using throwing knives because they've been so fun.

enemies react and recoil from getting hit, sometimes you really ragdoll a fucker on headshot, or floating ones drop out of the sky, and bits get blown off.

the world, characters and content are a bit bleh, but it's at least not completely obnoxious like BL3. you can enjoy some humour and also some drama. i get open world fatigue very easily and mostly doing only main story, the pace is a bit relentless. but yeah, with the core gameplay feeling so good it's not so bad to be in constant intense combat arenas. will probably be a weak point in the long run though, i doubt the "endgame" will really be that good. it's not really a full live service mmo-lite kinda series i know.

overall really didn't think i'd be enjoying a BL game this much.