I beat The Phantom Pain today.
Metal Gear has been a huge part of gaming for me since I was little, so it's a shame to see it go out because Konami decided to force Kojima out and ruin themselves as a games company. Kojima forcing out David Hayter was a crime in itself, too; Kiefer Sutherland hardly says anything and sounds disinterested and hung-over when he does. OTOH at least it ended with a bang and finally closed the gap between MGS3 and the original Metal Gear.
The multiplayer stuff is obnoxious, since Metal Gear has always been the series I think of when someone says "single-player." At least it's optional; I only did the online stuff when absolutely forced, and wasn't locked out of any single-player content for it. I'm curious how the story will be affected when the servers are inevitably shut down.
As for the story, well, it's a Metal Gear Solid plot; you probably already know if you like it or not. Personally, I really enjoyed it. I was glad to realize that cassette tapes fill the role of long-winded Codec calls, a tradition that fell by the wayside in MGS3 and never recovered. It has the typical prequel problem where a LOT of stuff happens that you think would be mentioned by games later in the chronology, but is never brought up again.
How sweet would it have been if Venom Snake was played by Kiefer Sutherland, only to reveal that the real Big Boss is still played by Hayter?
I never knew that you could see Paz (or a hallucination of her) on Mother Base, but I suppose it's my own fault for not exploring. I only went back to MB to shower between missions and for the occasional story segment that forces you to be there.
I was surprised by how well the events of Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes were covered by the story. I was afraid that I'd be lost, having not played those games, but I picked things up fairly quickly.
The third sin of MGSV (after Kojima's ousting and Hayter's replacement) is that Eli's story is never resolved. You can "watch" the mission as part of some collector's edition thing, or on YouTube, but it should have been in the damn game. It would have made a great trifecta for the finale, between "A Quiet Exit" and the alternate prologue. I guess Konami was hoping you'd just forget about Eli, the child soldiers, the floating boy, Sahelanthropus and the third test tube.
For hardly doing anything story-wise, Quiet really grew on me and I was sad to see her go. I guess the cheap sex appeal worked on me, kiss my bum if you don't like it. But her final scene raises the question of how the iDroid, which has GPS, radar, holographic projection, laser document scanning and even something like Internet access, can't send a text message. Couldn't Quiet just order a bunch of supply drops at their location? Or use the Fulton on Snake?