Warframe is a 3rd person (over the shoulder) co-op shooter that does many things right with some mistakes here and there. As of this review I have 395 hours in Warframe. No small chunk of change when it comes to playtime. In these ~400 hours I have seen all of the game's core content, except the newest expansion Fortuna as that just launched a few weeks ago. My honest opinion on the game is as follows.

-Runs great on almost any system from laptops to high end desktops.

-The artstyle and graphics are as fantastical as ever for a science-fantasy game. Warframe holds nothing back and creates a unique game world consisting of familiar earth-like terrain, sprawling metallic machine constructs, a terrifying organic plague, mystical ancient ruins and whatever inbetween the artists dream up. The environments, weapons, frames, ships and characters never feel like a derivative of some other piece of fantasy you've seen rehashed a dozen times. If Warframe's art direction doesn't immediately take you back and make you say "Wow", I don't know what will.

-The classes (warframes) and weapons all feel different to use. No single "class" is dominant and there is no "correct" weapon loadout to choose. It is completely up to your preference what frame you play with and what guns you use. With enough effort any frame and any weapon can be made "endgame viable" so rest assured you won't be locked out of the hardest missions just because you chose your starter warframe.

-The movement is extremely fluid, almost perfect. Sliding, dodging, rolling, gliding and aiming while in the air all work beautifully and give the game it's distinctive fast pace.

-The story is, in my opinion, what makes this game a hidden gem. The story really doesn't get going until several hours in and at that point you're going to be waiting as you increase your Mastery Level, complete planet nodes (missions), and craft parts needed to progress. However if you keep going despite that, the narrative that unfolds is masterfully executed and not only ties into the game world perfectly, but also elevates the game as a whole. A lot of set pieces, environments and characters don't make sense when you're first introduced to them. "Why is Vor antagonizing you and the other players? Who are the Orokin? Why does the Lotus care about you? Who are the Corpus? What is the Infested? What is that "Void" people keep talking about? What even is a warframe?" are a few of the questions everybody asks in the beginning. When you play through the story (and then eagerly look at your ship's codex to fill in the final little details)... you realize all these elements make sense, connect together and matter to the game world. At my first impression I thought the game was a decent shooter with nice visuals and cool guns. I never looked at the game the same way again after completing "The Second Dream" and neither will you.

-After 400 hours the missions, while well executed, have become repetetive and somewhat tedious. Guess that's just bound to happen when you do the exact same scenarios on every planet with no change in gameplay to suit the planet.

-The mod system is 60% useless crap and 40% actually useful mods, and if we break that 40% down further the total distribution becomes:
60% crap you'll use once when you start playing, then a veteran player will teach you what you actually should use to make weapons perform better.
20% gold and silver mods you absolutely need and will spend many missions trying to obtain.
10% prime mods you really should have but hardly ever get the opportunity to obtain outside of trading with players.
10% high stat rivens + exceptionally rare prime/gold mods that are borderline overpowered but so hard to come by that few people ever see them.

-The Plains of Eidolon is notorious for it's grind with paltry rewards. The overall "grind" not being rewarding enough is an issue best debated in it's own topic. I won't drone on in details but after the initial rush of Warframe's beginning, storyline and obtaining a few of the things you want finishes.... there's a significant time sink required to finish out end-game content. It's significant enough to warrant mentioning but not significant enough to prevent me from recommending this game.

-The game has been out for several years now and like all indie games it has it's share of bugs. Most game breaking bugs are patched quickly however a few loading screen bugs still persist after all this time. Protip: If you find yourself stuck in an abnormally long loading screen after finishing a mission.... you just encountered the frustrating infinite loading screen bug and your mission is toast. You get no rewards because the only way out of it is to restart the game entirely. Beware of updating the game when major patches go live because a very frequent error is a launcher error. A launcher error that refuses to recognize your game as being valid and forces you to reinstall the whole damn game. I'm not sure why Digital Extremes keeps pushing their awful launcher on us when steam has all the launching capabilities you need. I get that they still want to make the game available off Steam but when the majority of your players play through steam it's time to stop beating around the bush.

Warframe is a 3rd person (over the shoulder) co-op shooter that does many things right with some mistakes here and there. As of this review I have 395 hours in Warframe. No small chunk of change when it comes to playtime. In these ~400 hours I have seen all of the game's core content, except the newest expansion Fortuna as that just launched a few weeks ago. My honest opinion on the game is as follows. -Runs great on almost any system from laptops to high end desktops. -The artstyle and graphics are as fantastical as ever for a science-fantasy game. Warframe holds nothing back and creates a unique game world consisting of familiar earth-like terrain, sprawling metallic machine constructs, a terrifying organic plague, mystical ancient ruins and whatever inbetween the artists dream up. The environments, weapons, frames, ships and characters never feel like a derivative of some other piece of fantasy you've seen rehashed a dozen times. If Warframe's art direction doesn't immediately take you back and make you say "Wow", I don't know what will. -The classes (warframes) and weapons all feel different to use. No single "class" is dominant and there is no "correct" weapon loadout to choose. It is completely up to your preference what frame you play with and what guns you use. With enough effort any frame and any weapon can be made "endgame viable" so rest assured you won't be locked out of the hardest missions just because you chose your starter warframe. -The movement is extremely fluid, almost perfect. Sliding, dodging, rolling, gliding and aiming while in the air all work beautifully and give the game it's distinctive fast pace. -The story is, in my opinion, what makes this game a hidden gem. The story really doesn't get going until several hours in and at that point you're going to be waiting as you increase your Mastery Level, complete planet nodes (missions), and craft parts needed to progress. However if you keep going despite that, the narrative that unfolds is masterfully executed and not only ties into the game world perfectly, but also elevates the game as a whole. A lot of set pieces, environments and characters don't make sense when you're first introduced to them. "Why is Vor antagonizing you and the other players? Who are the Orokin? Why does the Lotus care about you? Who are the Corpus? What is the Infested? What is that "Void" people keep talking about? What even is a warframe?" are a few of the questions everybody asks in the beginning. When you play through the story (and then eagerly look at your ship's codex to fill in the final little details)... you realize all these elements make sense, connect together and matter to the game world. At my first impression I thought the game was a decent shooter with nice visuals and cool guns. I never looked at the game the same way again after completing "The Second Dream" and neither will you. -After 400 hours the missions, while well executed, have become repetetive and somewhat tedious. Guess that's just bound to happen when you do the exact same scenarios on every planet with no change in gameplay to suit the planet. -The mod system is 60% useless crap and 40% actually useful mods, and if we break that 40% down further the total distribution becomes: 60% crap you'll use once when you start playing, then a veteran player will teach you what you actually should use to make weapons perform better. 20% gold and silver mods you absolutely need and will spend many missions trying to obtain. 10% prime mods you really should have but hardly ever get the opportunity to obtain outside of trading with players. 10% high stat rivens + exceptionally rare prime/gold mods that are borderline overpowered but so hard to come by that few people ever see them. -The Plains of Eidolon is notorious for it's grind with paltry rewards. The overall "grind" not being rewarding enough is an issue best debated in it's own topic. I won't drone on in details but after the initial rush of Warframe's beginning, storyline and obtaining a few of the things you want finishes.... there's a significant time sink required to finish out end-game content. It's significant enough to warrant mentioning but not significant enough to prevent me from recommending this game. -The game has been out for several years now and like all indie games it has it's share of bugs. Most game breaking bugs are patched quickly however a few loading screen bugs still persist after all this time. Protip: If you find yourself stuck in an abnormally long loading screen after finishing a mission.... you just encountered the frustrating infinite loading screen bug and your mission is toast. You get no rewards because the only way out of it is to restart the game entirely. Beware of updating the game when major patches go live because a very frequent error is a launcher error. A launcher error that refuses to recognize your game as being valid and forces you to reinstall the whole damn game. I'm not sure why Digital Extremes keeps pushing their awful launcher on us when steam has all the launching capabilities you need. I get that they still want to make the game available off Steam but when the majority of your players play through steam it's time to stop beating around the bush.