Finally finished.
Going to try to do this without saying anything at all about the graphics.
As I stated originally the game starts off slowly with a deliberate pacing building the characters story and atmosphere. After about 5 hours in the story becomes very tight but you are asked to read between the lines on a few issues which I will not spoil here. Following context clues makes some of them pretty blatant others a bit more elusive. It is all tied together very nicely.
Level design is good, not excellent but good there are often multiple ways to dispatch enemies besides hiding behind cover and playing whack a mole. I like to try different approaches to combat in every game I play and can make combat in Infamous Second Son look like a choreographed fight in a film.
Some of the things you can do in the Order when you put some thought into it are pretty amazing. They just require a bit of creative timing with Blacksight and the various weapons at your disposal. I do feel like something is missing from combat options but I cannot quite put my finger on exactly what it is. I never had a problem with the cover system and was at times impressed (annoyed heavily at one point) with the enemy AI.
The Order is going to be my new go to score and there is one track in particular that hits at just the right moment and adds an extra layer of drama to the already intense scene. The music never felt out of place but what stood out to me just as much as the music was the ambient sounds. Some of them are so good I would suggest standing still and just listening to the world around you.
There were a few QTE in the game that I felt were out of place outside of those few incidents the pacing and placement of them was fine. The game gets better as you go on and in my opinion ends on a very high note but I must admit it has left me wanting more. I would suggest playing with aim assist off, camera bias on and hard difficulty.
I will give the game another play through at a much slower pace but if I had to say yes or no to buying this game day one, I would say this is definitely a day one game.
I think the game is more akin to TLOU in pacing than Gears which is a good thing in my opinion and after completion I would still say this is my favorite new IP so far this generation.
First play through score 9/10
Edited to add:
My wife watched me play this entire game from beginning to end, the last game she watched me play from beginning to end was TLOU.