I should have known it would be just alright. That's what Brink is, middle of the road, luke warm and all the various other terms that mean some good and some bad.
Sure the customization is good and I can pick the outfit I wanted for my character to wear but by the time I can get anything really interesting I'm already done the game. Sure I can play the game online to further unlock more shiny bobbles by grinding out experience but I really just don't want to. I can't bring myself to deal with the frustration of getting my ass kicked by fifteen year old cocky pricks like I'm playing a clunky cartoony shooter akin to Quake. And all just so I can finally get some pants that are badass.
If the game didn't have the shitty weaponry and terrible shot registry I would be more inclined to put some hours into it. More specifically what I mean by shitty shot registry is it seems, that even with the strongest weapons it is still annoyingly hard to kill the enemy. I find myself peppering bodies with a giant light machine gun and on the rare occasion when my bullets don't miss they seemed to have no effect. This ineffectiveness has me convinced that it doesn't matter which weapon I chose because I they all feel like nerf guns.
Further more Brink uses that god awful engine they made for Doom 3. Instead of feeling like a bad ass sniping soldier of carnage I am turned into a child who is trying to paint skinny bodies with my fingers. With out delving too much into my fanaticism about 3rd person shooter engines I'll just say that I like when my gun shoots where I aim it and not in a random pattern around where my cross-hairs lay.
When it comes to engine consideration all designer should realize the true reason that the Call of Duty series does so well: your gun shoots precise powerful bullets.
With the aforementioned shortcomings to the game-play you now understand why I would not want to spend time grinding in this game. I don't want to farm xp by playing through levels where the main frustration is the shit you're shooting at isn't dying.
The worst part of the non-delivery of this game is the promise and potential it has. The different classes and abilities to provide you team mates with buffs is a fresh a cool aspect to employ in an FPS. Picking from three different weight classes that have different weapon and mobility options can really split levels into different experiences. The heavy guys get the most weapons but the skinny guys can climb onto rooftops that no-one else can reach. The middle guys are a marriage of both aspects lessened respectively.
This could have save the game if, when you actually did get on the rooftop, you weren't using the crappy guns that aren't proficient at killing. The same goes for the heavy characters there's not much use taking a big machine gun and walking slow just so you can spray bullets all over you enemies if you actually are just missing and shooting the wall behind said enemy because your bullets are too inaccurate.
In the end Brink is all icing and not enough cake.