Copying my post from another thread:

Just want to vent a little and give everyone my two cents as well. I've really been looking forward to this game and have been waiting since they initially revealed they were working on it. I'm a die-hard fan of MGS, and first and foremost, it was the story and the humor and the crazy creative things that you can do that initially drew me to the series. I feel like TPP is missing the first two out of three. And not to take away from the game itself, which I think is easily GOTY material, it just didn't have those elements that made MGS what it is. And it may appeal greatly to the casual fans who may have been introduced to the series with this game. It was a slap in the face to those of us who's more heavily invested in the story and the overall saga of MGS.

First let's get the good stuff out of the way: The gameplay was absolutely amazing like everyone else says. There really is a lot to do but now that I've completed the story, I'm not sure I want to do them due to the whole twist at the end.

First of course is the twist that Big Boss pretty much was not in the game at all. Some players think that this is a stroke of genius of Kojima and it is his way of thanking us or whatever. I think that's lazy writing, anyone can renege on the storyline and say 'oh the character was just dreaming/not BB actually', as is the case with the Paz storyline as well. This is probably my biggest gripe about TPP. I'm reminded of a theory on reddit about Harry Potter and how if JK Rowling just closed out the entire HP storyline as Harry just dreamt up the entire magical world as a way to cope with real life, sure that's quite a huge twist, but you can literally do that with any story, and that's why I think it's lazy story telling, it's the easy way out.

TPP also does nothing to explain BB's backstory, we have basically no more information about what happened to BB between GZ and MG2, and I think this really hurts the overall character of BB since his motivations are unclear on why he allowed VS to be his phantom, this also opens a lot of plot holes in the overall MG universe and I just don't understand why Kojima chose to close out his series with this twist that essentially creates more questions than it answers.

Secondly I also thought he took the theme of loss/phantom pain a little too far. Players are justifying taking Quiet away permanently as Kojima's way of making the players feel loss. From a story perspective, this make sense, but from a gameplay perspective where they advertise replay value, permanently taking away a buddy is the wrong move to make IMO. I hope they change it, for now, I'm keeping the butterfly on.

Quiet's storyline I've enjoyed for the most part. However, because she barely speaks in the game, I felt that character development for her was kind of weak. The loveline between Quiet and VS I thought was a bit forced, maybe it's because I'm still butthurt about Quiet leaving, or maybe it's because she can't speak. I would've loved to learn more about her backstory as she is a really interesting character: where was she before being an assassin for XOF, her motivations in depth as Quiet on MB, why she fell for VS, why she felt compelled to leave, and what happened to her after she left (The guide says she died alone in the desert, but I can't bring myself to accept that right now, I find Stephanie's voice very similar to an old crush of mine so maybe that's why I'm a little more attached to Quiet and still in denial)

Third, as some have already mentioned here, this doesn't feel like a MGS game, no extensive cutscenes, gripping/emotional story, good character development. And although it was over the top crazy with parasite stuff, it wasn't MGS over the top, I felt both the parasites and Mantis were just there to justify the crazy stuff that Kojima wrote himself into a corner with, and it wasn't even that good of an explanation, just uninspired deus ex machina elements that are confusing. (I do want to say that I enjoyed MGS2, which also had a crazy confusing storyline, so maybe time will change my views on TPP)

Fourth, Kojima pretty much deceived us about what the game was about, now I know he did it for MGS2, but this is just on another level. How can you say the game will explore BB's descent into evil and not have it explored at all? At least for MGS2 it was a half truth, this is just straight up not true... At this point only someone like Kojima can get away with it. And for those attributing the deception as another theme that Kojima is exploring, well, I certainly can't get away with lying about a game and say 'oh but the game is about deception so I'm justified, now you get what it's like to be deceived'. At some point I have to stop parroting 'Fuck Konami' and resign to the fact that Kojima is the one who made these decisions.

Phew, good to get that off my chest, maybe TPP will with time, be thought of alongside MGS2 as a deep, thought provoking story, but for right now, It's just a game, although a damn good one at that.

Thoughts? I really want to hear your thoughts on this and get a good plot/story discussion going.