AWESOME!!!!! It was an extremely immersive experience and they did a great job in "getting you into" the action.
I'd have to say it was probably the most immersive console FPS I played. Seriously! I prefer FPS on PC, but since last year, I've been playing more FPS on my PS3 and 360. Broke a few game controllers from the "left stick sprints", heheheheee. What I'm trying to say is that I play quite a bit and have a pretty good general idea of the FPS that is out there, and how the play/mechanics/buttons...etc, is generally expected to work. So there's no console fanboyism here, as I play pretty much on both. I use CoD, Halo and GoW as examples simply because it's well known and generally people have played one/all of them.
I keep reading people comparing this to CoD and it doesn't play like CoD, it doesn't aim like CoD. Well, this isn't CoD, get over it. If it did everything similar to CoD, then this would just be another generic shooter. You'll be hearing people calling this Killzone World at War!!! I know that CoD is generally the gold standard, so naturally comparisons were expected to happen.
It was CoD4 that got me into console FPS. (Un)Fortunately however you want to look at it, games that I played after kind of sucked. As an example, when I finally got around to playing Halo 3, I thought the controls and gameplay sucked in multiplayer. Just hop around, grenade spam, hop some more, and you can't even sprint! The controls felt floaty and movement was slow. So after the initial disappointment, I bought Gears of War thinking it would be fun and got it 4 days after getting Halo. Nope! After all the initial eye candy graphics, that's it. It wasn't until after I stopped expecting it to be CoD:Halo and CoD:Gears, and took the game for itself, and learn to play how the developers wanted you to play it, that I started having fun. Heck, I played Halo this weekend for some quick fun
The biggest gripe from people seems to be this aiming lag. I couldn't aim either initially. It took the third time playing to actually get it, and it became a non-issue. It didn't matter whether my aim sensitivity was set at default or bumped to the max. It took a few plays through the short demo to get the hang of it. Initially I didn't have any problems when the targets are in the initial point of view, and you just scoot over to the next target. I can see how some people can get frustrated and it's when you go more than 90 degrees over or you have to spin around to the next target and you overshoot the mark. I think you'll eventually get use to the controls and you won't over aim the mark. So it will become more natural and a non-issue later. I still think this "slow" and then accelarated response is by design for the game mechanics and experience, which I'll get into later.
The cover mechanics is very well implemented. I know some said it was faulty or doesn't work right. I think if you expect to be able to peep out the side/top to shoot them and not get hit, that's not going to happen. If you can see them, then they can see you! Duh! Or if you take cover behind a short object, then yeah, they can pop you in the head. Think about it. If your whole screen is covered by an object while pressing cover, you can be sure that you are fully behind it. Only downside is if you are taking cover thinking you are tight into it, then the enemy takes an angle on you, and can hit you. I think this will play more into multiplayer, so you're not just sitting there hiding, but forced to look/peek around, and forces you to move around. This is a positive I think and should add to the overall experience.
Grenades - the visual indicator to cook them before throwing it was a nice touch. Also when they are thrown at you, you can at least see and hear where they land, which if they didn't cook it long enough, will give you a chance to get away. One of my annoyances in other FPS games, is if you didn't see the little black grenades initially, you end up just standing there and then boom, you're dead. Which just encourages grenade spamming.
Give me custom button mapping damn it!!! Yeah, I chose alt 2 as well. After a few times playing through it, I got use to the button mapping. Popping in and out of cover and aiming with index on L1 and middle finger on L2 became natural. My hands may be larger than some players, so I didn't have a problem doing this.
Just for fun, when I got into the warehouse area, I just went to melee all the Helghast. A little hard, but with the rush, cover, rush and then running on top of them to bunker them, was pretty satisfying. Try it. Also, before going into the warehouse, after shooting all the Helghast, start shooting and killing your team. They'll shoot back and you can have a little more challenging battle. The guys with helmets will die, but your squadmates without the helmets will get knocked down and ask for help. Funny.
In my opinion, I think the gamestyle like others have mentioned is a push cover push play, instead of running in guns blazing. I'm glad the developers did a little something different and kind of make you rethink of how to approach it, thereby giving you a different experience instead of just a generic shooter with pretty visuals. So with the rush, cover mechanics, fire suppression and pop in and out of cover to hit your target, the "heavy" aim feel actually works for this type of game play and in my opinion is a non-issue for not having snappy fast aim response. Taking these individually may not work for some, but when looking at everything, and the gameplay experience in total, it works very very well. The review scores, as well as from Warcrow and Hans experience in my opinion is legit. Some people just need to get over that this isn't CoD, BF, R1(2), Halo...etc.
Hell yeah I'm keeping my pre-order!!!