Holy crap I'm late on this.
Thanks for reading Smokey! Really do appreciate it 
Smokey wrote: I'm not sure I understand the beef with the gameplay, not in relation with the overall package. You call it "boring and repetitive". If this was Call of Duty, I could understand that since there's nothing BUT the gameplay to hold your attention ('cause LOL STORY). In essentially the same breath, though, you talk about how compelling and interesting the story is. If the gameplay is at least serviceable (read: not broken), why doesn't that serve as a vehicle for the story? Why aren't the great story and amazing visuals enough to overcome "meh" game mechanics?
Gameplay holding your attention as opposed to the story is extremely valid in my book, and that's actually why I mentioned Call of Duty in the post—in the first few iterations of that game, gameplay was actually a first-class citizen and noticeably so. This might just be me but story overcoming 'meh' mechanics does not sound like a videogame to me. I guess that was my main beef with the gameplay—it was not consistent with the story it was carrying, and that's a necessary relationship IMO.
Smokey wrote: Also, I wonder why you felt it necessary to distill the experience to those three things, considering that you can do that with any AAA game
IMO the games you mentioned at least try to hide the fact that they can be distilled. The Last of Us made no such effort. I guess my point is it felt a little claustrophobic; I'm sure you'll agree that games like Assassin's Creed and the Arkham series had some variety in their worlds despite there being no tangible variety in gameplay (although I also can't really speak for myself since I haven't really played them extensively). I literally cannot point out more than 3 visually distinct areas in The Last of Us that stood out, and the vast majority of the stuff I remember going through is sewers and ladders.
It felt like the sole purpose of the gameplay was to provide some sort of gap between the cutscenes. I don't really get that often with other games.
Smokey wrote: I'm not saying you went into The Last of Us just wanting it to be bad or anything of the sort, but maybe, instead of dissecting the game the way you did in your review, you could evaluate it on the overall package? I dunno. I might just be talking out of my ass here.
I guess my broader point is the fact that The Last of Us never really was able to demonstrate the presence of an overall package with me. And again—that's probably just me. The story was pretty good, but the world surrounding it felt incomplete and obscure. There was no particular effort in outlining a struggle outside that of Joel and Ellie's other than a few text snippets found here and there in some random houses. Gameplay was entirely separate from playing a part in the story other than the questionable inclusion of some quicktime events. I agree that this is not very different from a lot of other very decent games out there; but for me, The Last of Us seems to be the scraping of that barrel. Perhaps it was indeed because I was expecting something a little different out of it from the beginning.
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