No, it really is terrific. There are weaknesses which I won't touch upon since you're still playing, but all in all, this was a unique gaming experience which had me invested the whole way through. The gameplay mechanics really worked for me, and the world building was also excellent.
Finished this a couple of days ago.
So.....
The main story line was imo completely up and down, most of it I loved - Mama(My favourite one in the game), Fragile, Deadman, Mads Mikkelsen character and of course Sam along with BB("C'mon, Lou, one last delivery'' killed me)but even with the weaker parts(''Princess Beach''
)I always found it interesting. But the gameplay is where it really goes onto be something special and got me thinking of Tarkovsky Stalker. Not just in terms of the atmosphere and location but about the methods used. Tarkovsky in Stalker uses time itself as a form of story telling, the train sequence which until recently I've always hated is a good example. It had to be a long scene for the effect to work and when the Soviet bureaucrats asked to him to cut the running time down, he rightly threaten to make it longer. Turns out that Tarkovsky fella knew something about making movies!
Imo Death Stranding does something similar but with gameplay. To discuss themes of loneness, connection in the era of the internet, the gig economy, climate change and parenthood. Kojima and his team make you spend the majority of you're time as a lonely amazon worker who puts his life on the line delivering parcels(While carrying around a baby) because thats the only way to discuss and explore these topics(Death Stranding never offers any answers to these questions but for me thats a plus), even if this might run the risk of annoying the player. Kojima is willingly to make a less ''fun'' game in order to try and engage with these ideas. Once I got my head over this, the game started to click because there were plenty of hours I spent feeling frustrated or like I was wasting my time but thats kind of the point at certain parts, you can't talk about loneness in the modern world or the gig economy and not have the constant falling over, packages getting destroyed by time fall, rewarded in the form of likes and relying on the help of others. If this game didn't have a ton of struggle, it wouldn't work.
Thats not to say I didn't have any fun because there's plenty of great moments. I think it's the second anti matter bomb mission which can be turned into a remake of William Friedkin Sorcerer(I spent 30 minutes slowly rolling a truck down a snowy mountain in the hope of not getting killed). One time I made the mistake of taking too many time restricted orders at once which resulted in me crashing through a mule camp in order to finish the final order with only a one minute left. But all of this is secondary, Kojima has mentioned in interviews how he's goal was to make something that wasn't easy to digest, that he wanted something that would stick with the player for a long time, I think he achieved his goal with this.
Agree with you on the world building. Kojima needs some royalties from the Icelandic government, it's easily my next holiday destination.
Overall I'm a bit gutted it's over tbh.