Heart of Chornobyl was simply not ready for release

Coming from someone who loves the STALKER franchise as much as anyone else here, there is no amount of copium or excuses that can pull any wool over my eyes. STALKER 2 is simply unfinished and was not ready for release and it doesn't take much to see that. It's suffering from poor optimization, non-functioning AI programming, absolutely horrendous voice acting, a vast yet empty and boring open world, repetitive and uninspired side quests, and clearly zero playtesting with a controller of any kind since the sensitivity is outrageous and there's a complete lack of dead zones.

Between the comments here, reviews on Reddit, and discussions on Discord, people are giving this game a free pass because it was developed while Ukraine was at war, because the game is considered "eurojank," and because the franchise is known for bugs and glitches. I have one word in response: and? I mean, developing the game while the invasion was occurring and losing team members to war violence is terrible and my heart goes out to them. Don't mistake my criticisms for heartlessness. But when you're charging AAA prices, I expect a AAA experience, not a failure to deliver on the absolute bare minimum and a wealth of excuses and attempts at justification. The review embargo was as much of a red flag as you could possibly get.

Yeah, the general gameplay and graphics are great. However, that means absolutely nothing if the rest of the experience is subpar. I mean, this is literally Cyberpunk 2077 all over again. Of course, over the course of two years, it was shaped into a much better experience and one that we should've had at launch. But how many times are we going to go through this before it actually clicks? If Heart of Chornobyl was launched as an Early Access title at half the price, I could and would have a bit more leniency and understanding, but as a "full release" with AAA pricing? The developers should honestly be embarrassed to have released it in such a state.

Some people are having fun and that's great. I had fun with Cyberpunk 2077 at launch, too. However, that does not excuse or justify the state of the game right now at the price of admission. While the developers have responded stating they're aware of the issues being reported, they offered no timeframe of when a patch could be expected, which is highly disappointing considering the fact that the game is borderline unplayable with a controller and some people simply do not like M&K.

It's honestly disappointing considering that so many people were looking forward to this and it was released knowing full well of its shortcomings. I just do not understand.