Well I definitely had a completely different experience. The things that are immediately apparent is the familiar combat and enemies. Bungie clearly brought in a lot of mechanics from their Halo franchise and I don't think that is a bad thing. Controls felt great and the enemy AI was challenging during appropriate scenarios.
Graphics look solid (certainly not "PS3"
), frame rate smooth, art direction excellent, and most importantly all three classes were a lot of fun to play. During the alpha you start out at level 3, so there isn't a chance to sample the narrative. My one complaint was the exploring missions. They did begin to feel a little repetitive, but the thing that bugged me was the combat icon that attempted to direct you to the nearest mission beacon. It wasn't exactly intuitive and would often make me take a much longer route to reach a beacon.
You only get to play from level 3 to 8 in the alpha and are confined to one map. It's a large map, but it was still only one small part of the game. We got a glimpse of the RPG elements with the armor, stats and loot and I think there is a lot of potential. The game could still prove to be repetitive, but as of now it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun. I guess if you were expecting something revolutionary this might not be your game, but it has a lot of some of the best elements from different genres and that is perfect for me.
