It's very obvious from reading a lot of the user reviews that most of them did not get far enough into the game, although I will admit this is likely due to the game's massive design flaws. It does at first seem like there is only one game mode; however, the more you play the game, the more modes you unlock, from takes on classics like escorting payloads and capturing control points, to more interesting fare, such as MMO-inspired raid battles where both teams set aside their differences and work together to take down one big, bad dinosaur using The Power of Friendship™ (my personal favorite missions).

The issue is that the game does not make it immediately apparent that there IS more than one game mode, and while this appears to be done for very deliberate, story-related reasons that I will not spoil here but that are easily found online, I have to say, it really does the game a disservice. Personally, I enjoyed slowly unraveling the story and discovering why new game modes were being unlocked, but I can totally see why this would be a huge turnoff to some people, especially the casual crowd that is just wanting to jump in and out for some quick matches and/or those who are not interested in the story. And honestly, the story is a way bigger part of this game than it really advertises and I was pleasantly surprised to see a multiplayer game with such an interesting, albeit insanely cheesy, campaign - but it's completely understandable that some people don't even make it to this point since, on the surface, Exoprimal appears to be just another standard hero-based team shooter and those are typically very straightforward.

The graphics are technically very impressive, although some of the environments are a little bland for my taste, and the sound design is great. Weapons feel good to use and a lot of the characters are insanely fun, but another huge ding against the game is that there just aren't enough characters. In combat, your customizable player character pilots giant mecha called "exosuits" to fight off the hoards of dinosaurs and/or the enemy team, and while each exosuit has their own unique play style, voice lines, cosmetics, etc., and the roster initially looks pretty large, in reality, there is a very small base roster of only 10 exosuits, with 4 DPS options and 3 each for tank and support.

The remaining playable exosuits are α and β variants of each character, but there is great variability between how different the variants are from the base suit, so while some may feel almost like a different character entirely, others feel almost the same as the default exosuit, with only minor changes. This can feel disappointing and frustrating at times, and is made worse by the fact that you have to either buy the variants with real money, or grind for several hours to reach level 20 on what is essentially each character's "battle pass" that you level up by playing matches with that suit (battle passes that are free I might add, but don't you worry, there's paid seasonal passes too). So, depending on the number of variants you're interested in obtaining, you're looking at potentially hundreds of dollars spent buying each of them outright, or hours spent grinding to get each exosuit to rank 20.

The rest of the game is largely fine. The story is extremely cheesy and tongue-in-cheek, often in a "so bad it's good" manner, reminiscent of straight-to-DVD B-movies playing on basic cable at 3 PM on a Saturday type of way. It's nothing groundbreaking, but I found it enjoyably dumb and interesting enough. The voice acting falls into the same category, being a hodgepodge of either perfectly adequate or laughably bad, as characters shriek at your sweet, dumb, doofy-looking silent protagonist in exaggerated Russian, Jamaican, and British accents.

The progression system is unusual in that you unlock new cutscenes and story sequences by playing a certain number of matches; sometimes you may end up waiting in matchmaking for several minutes if you are being unknowingly queued into the next campaign mission, which can often lead to getting matched with bots or players who have already completed these missions. This can lead to some confusion, as you may occasionally get matched with a group doing a campaign mission you have already completed, and for some reason, every time you complete a campaign scenario, the same story-related cutscene plays when you exit the match. It took me a while to realize why I was occasionally finishing a match and seeing cutscenes I'd already seen before, and on more than one occasion I actually got matched with groups doing story missions I hadn't even unlocked in my own campaign, which led to me exiting a match and loading into a very confusing cutscene where the story had apparently jumped ahead with no explanation.

Overall, I think Exoprimal is a great game, just one held back by some rather head-scratching decisions on CAPCOM's part. While I would say I definitely got more than my money's worth from Exoprimal, and I would argue the high production value warrants the $60 price tag, it is a paid entry in an over-saturated genre that has almost entirely pivoted to a F2P model, which is understandably off-putting to a number of players. Add to that the presence of paid DLC - and yes, the majority of it is obtainable with in-game currency, but there is some content locked behind four paid seasonal battle passes, as well as crossover content from other CAPCOM games - and the first impressions are, sadly, really not great. Even if one gets past these hurdles, the convoluted manner in which the story is told and locking alternative game modes and characters behind dozens of hours of playtime does little to help an already struggling game's reputation (to say nothing of the complete and utterly baffling lack of marketing).

I have enjoyed my time with Exoprimal greatly, but I completely understand why it has the negative/mediocre word-of-mouth that it does, and as much as I would love to play with my friends, I can't fault them for not jumping into an exosuit to shoot up some dinos with me, especially now that it's been announced the game is "complete" and will not be receiving further content. Why it is obvious to thousands of average gamers the many reasons that Exoprimal failed to become the next big thing, but not to the million-dollar development company responsible for it floundering, is absolutely beyond me, but I sincerely hope that CAPCOM realizes how hard they dropped the ball on this game, how much potential it has, and revisit it in the future instead of letting it fade away into obscurity like so many other live service games these days.

TL;DR - Great game held back by questionable choices, I'd get it on sale. Alternate game modes locked behind hours of progress. Small roster, 10 characters + 2 variants each & some variants are too similar to default. Paid DLC, including $40 worth of battle passes. Story is dumb fun, but told in a confusing way. Lack of fresh content going forward due to game being "complete."

Hella fun game! Sad they aren't supporting it anymore, make sure to grab it when it goes on sale to try it :)

Pretty Good game and alright story