TL;DR too much walking, not enough enemies, not enough guns, bad aiming

There are many flaws in Borderlands which stop it from being a really good game. I mean, a really fun and good game. It feels like a good concept for a game built on a pillar of call of duty gameplay; the game is a bad hybrid of modern shooter "gameplay" (if you can even call it that) and actually fun oldschool arcade gameplay. Quite simply, you can tell that there is not much talent behind the creaters behind this. They just got lucky and made a somewhat fun game.

The level design of this game is quite bad. The game is very slow in its introduction to start becoming fun. You do not have your ability until level 5, and the guns are very much basic ones. The dungeons are all more or less the same. At least they had the decency in many dungeons, to design shortcuts from the end of the dungeon to the beginning. Then there's walking. there is walking and walking from point A to B (and no, this "sprinting" is no sprint. Call me back when the character is as fast as doomguy). This is okay on maps where there are vehicles; on maps without them, it's a huge pain. Honestly I have spent more time in this game walking from point A to B then fighting. The setting is made by many levels and semi-hubs. You go to one town, which has 3 dungeons or enemy areas on the outskirts of its map. You do typical chores, or I'm sorry, "missions" like killing 10 chickens in this that dungeon and collecting this that artifacts of an ancient civilization 1000 years ago (original story, do not steal). Sounds familiar, right? Now, borderlands makes this fun by having crazy loads of weapons and crazy loads of enemies. Or so it tries.

There is no 67 bajillion guns. There's several models for the base, handle, scope, and other accessories for each type of gun, and different colors for each model. These parts are randomly placed together, with randomly generated stats. Now this is totally fine if there were many models for each of the above. But there isn't, that's the thing. After a while, you notice the trends in the gun models and notice that you get the same gun over and over, just with slightly different numbers. Also, the difference in the guns are somewhat superficial. There are guns which reload faster, zoom more, fire faster, have more accuracy, and have more ammunition per magazine. Pretty boring right? But then, there's possible elemental effects for each type of gun, possibility of the gun acting like other types of guns (shotguns which fire rockets, revolvers with shells etc). It leads into something that could be exciting, but then it stops there. The are only so many REALLY crazy guns, like the TK's wave shotgun where the bullets bounce from the ground... and I can't remember any more. There isn't ♥♥♥♥ like in painkiller where you shoot lightning and shurikens. Hell, there isn't even miniguns in this game! It's like as if this game was designed by people who only ever played call of duty and Wowt. What about sniper rifles which shoot tornadoes with swords slashing inside them? What about shotguns which shoot slimes onto enemies which can poison others? Why aren't there rocket launchers which shoot moais that get bigger as they get damage until they finally explode?

As you would imagine, the amazing 67 gajillion guns play worse than call of duty. Rubbish hip fire and iron sights. The only valid guns from a distance, if you want critical hits, are those with 95+ accuracy. There's also this really annoying thing where you lose your aim when you get shot, so you cant pick off headshots with a sniper rifle or revolver because every time you try doing so, the aim in iron sights randomly goes upwards. Not to mention, the bullet lag is ridiculous. It doesn't help that the AI is complete garbage and ALWAYS knows where you are, so there's no flanking (unless you use your special ability, but that's less fun). The only valid weapons are high-repeating ones, but maybe this is because I played as soldier. Also, gainig experience in guns can ruin the game if you get too much experience in one gun, because every other gun type starts to feel pointless. If you get an accurate assault rifle, with assault rifle perks and skills, that's it. You main that gun forever. Did I also mention that the guns sound and feel like they are plastic?

There is not much enemy variety at all. There are people, which range from psychos, midgets, normal ones, and armored ones. Each have interesting ways in which they fight against you. Psychos are melee only so you can prioritize killing them later, which is thrilling because you have to judge when you have to kill this axe wielding madman, who is right in front of you, compared to the man in the distance who is shooting you. Midgest are mostly comic relief, but you need to be careful because they can escape your line of sight. The armored ones require you to aim outside of their shield, or may even require headshots (if I recall). The headshot for skags is when they open their mouths, while for those bug things it's their jelly backs. There isn't much way of defending against enemy attacks, however. It's a matter on how fast you can kill them with how much you can aim for their heads. Also, there aren't that many enemies at once. It would be really fun if the game played like serious sam where there are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of enemies and you have to move in order to attack them. You are too slow to dodge anything in Borderlands. You can't hide behind cover because the enemies always know where you are. So you simply go backwards, distancing youself from the enemy, and you try to kill the enemy first. The few enemies are fairly fun to play against. But you will kill, thousands upon thousands of the same guys over and over again, to the point where it's boring.
On another note, I have to say that you will laugh your ass off at midgets. Also, the second wind mechanic is great. By keeping a low health enemy near you as you nearly die, you can essentially never die in this game. It's some fun, basic strategy.

I can't comment on the balance of the characters, but Berserker has a really boring ability. Soldier's turret is alright. It's kind of superficial though. I guess you are supposed to pick characters on what kind of gameplay you like, but you are stuck with that for that entire game. You can't switch classes for the same build.

The DLC's mess up the balance of the game, because it was made so that you start playthrough 2 of the original game straight after playthrough 1. But if you play through the DLC's playthrough 1, you start playthrough 2 being too powerful, killing the pace of the game.

The optimization is terrible. I get FPS slowdowns when there are many objects in the viewing distance, on my computer which has an i7 and a GTX 760.

The music is very minimal. The music by elephant in the cage, in the beginning, is the highlight of the musical composition in this game.

No comment on the graphics.

The game is mighty fun when you are blowing up loads and loads of enemies in the face with a superfast submachine gun or shotgun that has flammable bullets, and just mowing those bullet sponges down. No really, it's actually damn fun, even when you are alone. It's even more fun with friends (then again everything is more fun with friends). There's just a lot of walking inbetween, with no ability to aim accurately from a distance. I want to blast things close up in the face while at the same time picking off headshots with my sniper rifle from hip fire.

I can only recommend this game to you if you like loot, guns, comic art, and RPG's like I do. Otherwise, stay away form this game.