To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to this game as previous Ubisoft games have been quite dissapointing. Played about 5 hours so far and my thoughts are as follows:

Pros:

The gameplay itself is great. Transitioning from 3rd to first person in combat is smooth and satisfying - guns have actual recoil
Customisation of both weapons and characters is great. Lots of options.
The world is big and beautiful, at times it feels to big but isn't so much as completely empty as some game maps tend to be at this sort of scale.
PHYSICS - bullet drop exists which always adds something more to the game. (isn't point and click like CoD)
Some people tend to believe the dialogue is boring and shallow, however it's better than nothing. Your squad mates will talk every now and then about whats going on in the world and can be pretty interesting, however as you play more and more I'm not sure wether they'll keep repeating the same things over and over or not.
Enemies aren't bullet sponges and neither are you. Enemies die realistically, gettting shot in the chest with a high caliber rifle actually effects them -and headshots kill instantly. Also you can;t take many hits before you're killed as well, which is nice. I've been playing on standard difficulty and upping the difficulty gives you less health so that would be challenging.
The UI/Skillpoint/Map interface is smooth and easily understandable.
LOTS OF WEAPONS - There are dozens of weapons to choose fro, each with their own customisation options.
Suppressors actually effect your weapon in both noise levels and effectiveness of your weapon.
The drone works well, cant go too far from your body or you will lose signal and the battery doesnt last forever.
Alot of people have been complaining about the cover system, however I think it works better than the divisions cover system as you dont need to press a button on a wall in order to get cover, just crouch near a surface and you will stick to it.
The dynamic weather is awesome. When its dark, its actually dark, rain looks great, and the bright sunny days look beautiful.
Freedom to do whatever you want, however you want. Literally.
Sounds is vast and immersive. Transitioning between outside and inside changes the sounds of the environment. Very immersive.


Now to the bad:
The way your teammates work is awful. Having to send them everywhere manually all the time gets old. You feel like your by yourself most of the time because they'll just sit in cover and not do much, but immediately run towards you if you die to revive you. Playing co-op with 3 pals would make this irrelevant, which is what I look forward to doing. Also, using the scroll wheel to select the option is awful. Needs to be selectable through mouse movements like overwatch,
The way vehicles drive needs work. Feels like you're driving on ice all the time.
Motorbikes are hilarious. Literally cant fall off and you can traverse any gradient without fear of falling off. Not very realistic.
The enemy AI is needs some work as well. Multiple times I've been attacking an enemy camp with a Sniper, and enemies will move the exact position where one of their mates was just killed. Seems like the opposite should happen if they want to stay alive. However, if they don't know where you are they will stick to cover.
I feel like after you've put about a days played on this game, it will start to get very repetitive. It has the same sort of intel and boss mechanics as games like Shadow of mordor, where every mission is to gather intel on a target (boss) by interrogating high value targets. Gets very repetitve and I hope they add some variety to some of the intel gathering.
Bullet penetration would be a nice addition. When an enemy is stuck behind a piece of plywood, i feel like I should be able to shoot through it with a 7.62.
It feels as if ammo is too abundant, Ammo crates are everywhere (which makes sense as these are druglords who are all armed) but a bit of scarcity with the ammo would add an extra thing to consider (not wasting ammo).
While the drone is awesome, there is not limit as to how much you can use it. You can literally spam it as many times as you want. Needs a cooldown/recharge time for the battery or something. Also, enemies are oblivious to it which is a bit silly.
Dead enemies despawn almost immediately, so alive enemies won't stumble upon a dead body and be alerted by it. Not sure if its intentional or an oversight, but this should be fixed.
Also, bullet speed is a little slow. Feels a bit weird when you're shooting something 100m away and the travel time is noticeable. Realistically, anything past about 200m is when you will start noticing.



THINGS PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT THAT ARENT REALLY PROBLEMS
Optimisation and performace. This will get fixed with driver updates and patches to the game. Although while the "open beta" is technically a demo as the game comes out in two weeks, this will get fixed.
Helicopters? They're a massive drug cartel. Drugs = Money - Money = Luxuries i.e helicopters for transport etc. Don;t forget that at the very start, the game tells you that the government has basically told them to do what they want if they don;t kill their people, so they can pretty much do anything.
Helicopter controls really aren't a problem.


Conclusively, this game has a lot of what the division failed to bring to the table, that it desperately needed. It plays really well so far, and seems promising. So long as Ubisoft doesn't ignore all the feedback this game can be a great one. Lots to do, lots to see (if you're into open world games). You can't take this game too seriously. It doesn't have the depth of combat and stealth like MGS so don;t expect that. Have realistic expectations of this game and you won't be as angry as alot of people seem to be. I've read a lot of feedback and alot of the things that are said to be "wrong with the game (like the stuff I mentioned above) is simply petty crap that you either wont notice, want, or miss from the game. Having said that however, the game isn't finished which is worrying considering its so close to release. It needs work, but will be an excelllent shooter if the problems are met with action.

If you're looking to the buy the game, I would definitely play the beta first before paying real money.

STILL MAD THAT COMPANIES ARE RELEASING SEASON PASSES FOR GAMES THAT ARENT RELEASED YET AND $190 FOR A GAME IS TOO MUCH CONSIDERING YOU COULD PUT THE DLC CONTENT INTO THE BASE GAME AND NOT RIP US OFF, however if the game manages to keep you interested for longer than 10 hours as alot of game these days fail to do, I'm okay with DLC content given that it's worth the extra 60$.

Well that's just my opinion. But if you're interested in the game, play the beta and get your own feedback from it for yourself, as some things that annoy some people might not bother you.

Have fun, I'm gonna keep playing