SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT
I finished the campaign yesterday, and holy crap man...such a good story line. The first two Bioshocks were slightly on the same page as this one. The first one with the "Would you kindly?" twist really pieced together the game. I'm all for "Twists" when it comes to story lines. Because as soon as the twist is revealed, your mind is blown at how many things make sense.
Now, for game play:
The absolute beauty of the detail they put it in it is almost breath taking. The architecture and design of buildings and landscapes is grade A+ material. They didn't just skimp on detail and backdrops. They made SURE you had plenty to look at any where and every where. Most game companies will just give you a single texture or a static landscape, not this game. Completely dynamic landscape and amazingly textured. The exterior of the city is only rivaled by the interior of some buildings. The architecture and pure attention to detail really shows all around you.
Now, the girl who follows you around is actually pretty smart coding. She doesn't just stand on your heels and follow you around. And when you stand still she doesn't say something like "WOW TAKE FOREVER" which I feel like is just a cop-out for originality in NPC partners. If you walk into a building she'll run into another room, or stand up against the wall. It's always different and always interesting. The "Here catch this" got sort of annoying. I found a loop hole in the system and figured out how to get her to give me money constantly almost instantly after getting her. She also will sometimes break paths and walk into a closed door to a room full of enemies, with me, on the other side of the room collecting much needed ammo and health taken completely by surprise. But, it was always nice not having to baby sit her when in combat.
I also ran into a few glitches. I would skyhook onto a rail, jump off of it, then onto another one, only to have my view completely stuck straight forward without being able to move it. Ended up having to reset from a checkpoint, but Bioshock is friendly enough to supply you with a million save points every 2 seconds, so it really didn't bother me too much.
The "Tear" thing was actually pretty cool in combat. You can call upon multiple things to help you in combat. However, it made it nearly impossible for me to see around large holograms to fight enemies. I would normally just call upon a mosquito or a sentry gun. Everything else just seemed pointless.
The vigors aren't anything to write home about. They brought the classics back and introduced a few new ones...well the new ones aren't very good. The one vigor that absorbs bullets and then reflects them back at enemies is actually the only one I liked out of the new set. The fire, lightening, crow, posession, and a few others are just recycled powers from the previous two. I always loved the Bee Swarm from the previous ones, so the crow vigor was a natural "go-to" power. I did like how they combines traps with the power. I literally NEVER used the trap powers in the previous games. They just seemed useless.
Now, the story line is something of a masterpiece. Originally I said it didn't follow the story line of the previous games, well, I was wrong slightly. The nastauligic feeling I got when revisiting rapture was a pretty nice touch. And the progress of the story gets better the more you start putting the pieces together. 2K games really knows how to tell a story
All-in-all this game was a very VERY sought after game for me. I've waited since bioshock 2 for the release of this game. And I wasn't dissapointed in the slightest. They took a completely different route from the previous two, which takes a lot of guts, and they pulled it off better than I could have imagined. The amount of thought and polishing it takes to make a game like Bioshock is something you can only respect.