Many know that Secret World has somewhat been placed into the grave. It rests without much more jewelry. Yet, I continue playing within this world. Why? I've played many games. Simply put, none of them have a storyline so intriguing and so beautifully and wickedly written. I don't play it for community time with other players. I solo it to enjoy the depth and beauty of one of the most brilliantly written and scripted games ever made. Maybe someday, it will be resurrected into a new darkness.

Where to start, I've known about the legacy version of this game since circa 2012, I wasn't able to buy it back then, but I still had it in the back of my mind, because the premise deeply fascinated me.
Now, years later, I stumble upon Legends, a free version, or so I thought (We'll get there).

I also need to mention that I've never played the original TSW, wish I had so I could properly compare, however my knowledge stems only from Legends.

I don't mind the older graphics, the combat system is enjoyable and engaging enough even after hours of gameplay, albeit a little stiff, could be just the age of the game. Some abilities can heavily impact the way you play, same with the type of weapon you choose to go with.

Storylines vary in quality and after finishing most of the game I noticed you don't really get closure for most of them, now, there's an in-universe explanation for that: You are here just to do your "small" part in this large operation and once you're done, you move on to the next gig. However it can feel a little unsatisfying. It'd also be fun if the zones changed depending on how far into the story you are, similar to how you get a completelly overhauled Orb Vallis map in Warframe, it's still mostly the same map, it's basically just less winter-y.
My point being no changes are permanent in this game and that's fine, could've been interesting if they were however, it'd give players the impression they are actually making a difference.
Not to mention my biggest grievance with this game: the story is not finished, which I didn't know until now, because I avoided spoilers like the plague. I got to the New Dawn part which hints at more stuff going down in Kongo, but Oh no! there is no Kongo and there probably never will be, judging by the almost a decade old forum discussions about this topic, so why even add New Dawn's storyline and not just end with Tokyo, which is mentioned since the START of the story?
And I enjoyed New dawn, I really did, going no contact with your organisation and blending in with a dangerous cult to get intel on them in the middle of nowhere? That's cool, but it ends on a cliffhanger that will not get resolved any time soon.

Cutscenes. Every mission type aside from Side missions gets a cutscene, which is quite impressive when you realise there's more than 500 missions (Numbers vary, some sources say around 660) in SWL. The cutscenes are for setting the atmosphere and getting to know the mission giver character, I enjoy them, BUT. Most of the cutscenes are characters monologuing, since the MC is a silent protagonist (which leads to some pretty funny interactions), so far, so good, until they start monologuing about their childhood or other things that have nothing to do about the mission (looking at you Andy, I love you but can you please focus on the Draug instead of mentioning the kittens and your dad thing?). It can feel out of place and/or drag a little.

Missions are a mixed bag: I enjoy Investigation missions a lot, but sometimes they seemed to be hard just for the sake of it and included puzzles one simply couldn't solve without the Internet's help even if they were a genius, and I don't mean things like having to know morse code, because you can get around that, I mean things like looking for clues on book covers only to realise the code is in the ISBN numbers of said books, a mild example. They're really fun to do when you sit down, think about them for a while and get that little Click! in your head. When it gets frustrating is when the correct solution has nothing to do with what you worked with up to that point,.
Some mission Achievements are nigh impossible due to controls not being like...precise enough I'd say, other's are impossible to get without previous knowledge of the mission area's layout.
That can be VERY frustrating.
Other than that the missions are fun and frequently mix things up so you're not doing only fetch quests for 150 hours.

Enemies are a highlight for me, yes they are reused a few times troughout the different zones, but for every reused/repainted enemy model there's multiple completelly new ones. Not to mention the designs, which go from standart (zombies and some of the demons) to bizzarely cool and unique (Filth birds, Locusts and Mushroom abominations). Also my personal favourite, the Ak'ab.

Dungeons, Lairs and Champion enemies are a nono when playing solo, which makes me angry personally, since the low player count practically makes it impossible to do those. In my 300 hours of gameplay I've ran 1 dungeon mission, to be fair I prefer to play solo, however I tried to activelly seek players for dungeon runs a few times with no luck. I might be doing it wrong though, so don't take my word for this one.

SWL is not pay to play (oh, unless you wanna finnish your Occult museum exhibits), but it's a ""light"" Pay to Win= You can pay monthly Patronage to get extra XPs and other stuff. It's not an absurd amount, but it does make a noticeable difference.
And that frankly...sucks.

I need to emphasize one thing before wrapping this review up: the music is SO good, it really is a gem (release the full, and I mean FULL, soundtrack cowards! I know there's majority of the OST on YT, but I KNOW there's tracks missing). The atmosphere would be nothing without it. God, the first time I heard the Siren song...

As to why I'm giving this game a recommend? Honestly, I've been asking myself the same question while writting this review and the truth is I do love this game, I want it to be finished some day, even though the flaws are apparent.
The lore, the music, the Lovecraftian themes, the atmosphere, I can't get it out of my brain.
The combination of mythology, conspiracies, alternative history and our history is something I wish was explored more often in games.
As someone who often wanted to be a part of some kind of secret world, this game simply scratches an itch that others don't.

If you are into these things- deep lore, secret organizations, conspiracies, mysticism and such, try this game out.
If you're primarily into things like gameplay, well, approach with lower expectations, or not at all.