What do people feel about the game as a...um, well, just a GAME so far?
As a game I preferred 9.
The cutscenes in this one are ugly, and the character models seem less detailed. Personally, I REALLY hate what they did with Outworld. Turning it into a desert-esque badlands kind of thing is lame. I loved the twisted architecture and purple sky Outworld has always had. The gameplay is smooth and definitely follows the classic MK feeling of sluggishness; I find it feels a lot like the PS2 games. The battle system relies heavily on blocking and counterattacking, rather than full on offensive tactics.
The storymode wasn't as impressive either. It was cool, and I enjoyed it, but it seemed to tie in really heavily with the comics, and I haven't read those, so there was some big "Where the hell did that come from?" moments concerning some of the characters. It also--as far as I know--went fully off the beaten track, rather than being a fleshed out version of MK4+'s stories, like 9 did for 1/2/3. As far as I can see the only similarity was that Shinnok was the big bad. The characters included in the game didn't sync up very well with the characters offered in the 1 on 1 either. I won't get into it due to spoilers for the story, but it seemed like lazy implementation to me; traditional characters were added solely for the sake of them being there, unlike 9 where they were in the game because they played a role at that point in the story.
The storymode also incorporates Quick Time Events (Press A. Press B. Etc), I've always hated QTE's.
No stage fatalities. NO. STAGE. FATALITIES.
The Krypt has been beefed up, and is a game of sorts in its own right. The online "Faction" stuff seems to be pretty cool though, my faction totally whooped the shit out of an Outworld invasion last night, which opens up a unique tower, an "Invasion Boss", and a could of other things. We're on track to win the first Faction war, so I'm curious to see what that gets members.
Overall. It's fun. The fights are tactical and enjoyable, the fatalities live up to the reputation of the series (surpassing even 9 in the just outright brutality of them, no pun intended), it doesn't seem to be buggy (though a friend with a weaker rig tells me the PC optimization is poor), and its satisfied my need for violent pummelings. Good, but not great. 9, in my opinion, is a much better game overall.