I'd like to start off with that I don't want to give the game a negative review, I really dont. It's a good game, but not $55 good. (or $60 in my case since I pre-order the dlx edition) I've been hooked on it since the moment it's released and playing every moment I can (it's not actually the full 35 hours i've played since release I just have a habit of leaving games open when im AFK). But the game has issues you just cant ignore.
The dinosaurs are gorgeous but not much beyond that. They're well animated but have an extremely limited selection of animations. Dinosaurs lack a proper AI. They mindlessly roam around, and thats it. There is no hearding or pack-hunting. Carnivores just simply go on killing sprees, and dont stop when they're full, leaving a trail of death that would make the Indominus jealous, they literally will not stop killing things until they are dead or have nothing left to kill, making it impossible to make a balanced ecosystem. Dinosaurs require a minimum amount of grassland and forest depending on the dinosaur, this sounds good in concept but utterly terrible in design, you think you have what it takes to keep the dinos happy, but they move to the left 3 feet and the grassland/forest rating is totally different, leading for them to become unhappy and break out (which is why my trex broke out)
While the game is beautiful it lacks content and things to do. Visitors are just generated on pathways, no needs, not clickable, just math generated. Another thing that bothers me is the lack of cosmetics, the only thing you can really make your park better with is with the tree and grass tools which dont even allow you place trees seperately, its just a brush, leaving gaps in spaces where you could fit them on your own. I want benches, flower-beds, trashcans, picnic tables, parks, signs, etc but none of it is there. The game honestly doesnt have much to do, what you do in the first 20 minutes of your first game is the pretty much the only thing you'll be doing. Half the game is really just telling rangers to fill up feeders, because you can't do much else. There are no upgraded buildings or building variations, leaving your park looking bland. No different style or larger hotels, paddocks, shops, or anything, it feels unimpressive when you have tiny buildings dotted everywhere. The park honestly feels dead.
The game's maps are small, which causes an issue because most dinosaurs require large enclosures meaning you can only fit a very limited selection of dinos on an island, or they'll break out. Isla Nublar, what was told be a large spacious sandbox map is very small as well, only being able to fit a few decent sized enclosures. The sandbox mode in Isla Nublar was terribly thought out. I'm a sandbox player, I don't enjoy playing through all these island campaigns to slowly unlock stuff, and that's an issue. You can only use what you've unlocked on Isla Nublar, meaning if you really want the open-endedness that the game can give you, you have to play through all the island campaigns and complete all the objectives. It's been over a day of obsessive playing and I still have yet to unlock everything when I just wanted to play the open-ended sandbox it should have provided. I'm already starting to get bored of the game, still chugging through on Isla Sorna and I haven't even been able to experience and enjoy a true sandbox experience. I honestly feel burnt out, and by the time I unlock everything I won't even have the interest to keep playing and enjoying like I should have.
The game honestly feels like a stripped down Planet Coaster (don't even get me started), and Planet Coaster was already bad enough for me. Like PC and most other Frontier games, they're absolutely gorgeous, but extremely shallow in gameplay and what other content they offer, blow-up kiddy pool shallow. And it's a shame because I love the dinosaurs, I love how beautiful the game is. But it's not wortha $55/60 price tag. The games biggest saving grace would've been a modding community, but Frontier has this big thing against modding that I don't quite understand so the game comes with 0 modding support so you're stuck with what you got.
This game has so much promise and potential, but it feels absolutely wasted. I remain optimistic that Frontier will hopefully address these complaints and more and look forward to what they may have in store.