For what it's worth, Far Cry 2 has enough flaws and enough gems that the player's enjoyment is influenced more by personal experience than linear games.
Far Cry 2 has problems. The blur effects that simulate heavy breathing after a sprint practically require you to keep a vehicle on hand at all times, especially when your malaria condition worsens. This made me feel like an unhealthy, obese assassin that used a scooter as a primary means of locomotion. The AI can sometimes shoot you through brush that, on similar engines such as Crysis, you might expect to conceal you. There are three (four including promotional content) side mission categories, and the dozen or more missions in each category are identical. The AI appear incapable of using stairs or ladders. The PC version of the game has a far better save/load system and allows you to use it at any time. Console players and critics will likely become frustrated from retracing their steps after a bullshit death. This makes the game feel like a good engine that has yet to become a good game.
On the other hand, I liked the open-endedness of Far Cry 2. To put things in perspective, before I tried Far Cry 2 I played games the Half-Life 2 series, Prey, FEAR, and Gears of War. These games were good in their own respects, but to me it felt like it was one step up from watching a movie. Some locations might be larger than others, but in general the gameplay was the same. You initiate some sequence or find some lever to open a door, follow the path to kill something and repeat. Decisions about combat style and routes to a target were often made for you. For me, Far Cry 2 was the complete opposite. Later in the game, you can amass enough weapons to decide how you wanted to engage targets. For example, you could buy a camo suit, silenced weapons and sleep until darkness. You could purchase a high-powered sniper rifle and a flamethrower to snipe, set the landscape on fire around you to conceal your position, move, and snipe again. You could purchase explosives and assault weapons. You could scout the surrounding areas of posts to find good locations to snipe, or locations that could not be easily flanked. The open world and the open gun market let me actually play a game and have fun the way I wanted, rather than replay a campaign only to take a path, to open a door, to kill something in a manner that was designed for the situation.
So, you either play the game and find out that the missions are repetitive, the AI can be frustrating, and the storyline is unengaging until the ending. Or, you might look past those problems and enjoy the graphics engine while you have fun doing whatever the hell you want to do.
