Wasteland 2: Directors Cut

I have been pushing this review for weeks because I just didn't know how to sum everything up, so I decided to use a list format to make it concise.
Immersion
You lead a team of fresh recruits of the Desert Rangers, one of the biggest & most esteemed factions for preserving order in post-apocalyptic Arizona.
Like most RPGs, some NPCs will say cheesy things or act in ways you can’t relate to. But generally speaking, most dialogues are good enough to make the Wasteland a believable place.
The Wasteland’s believability largely stems from the world’s consistency. Actions you take in this game and that players canonically took in the original 1988 Wasteland have long-lasting ripple effects that shaped & continue to alter Arizona and the Desert Rangers’ reputation in it.
Most central characters are voiced. General Vargas (the Desert Ranger commander, whom you will talk with a LOT) has a rough voice like Will Arnett’s (BoJack Horseman).
Every time you travel on the world map, you will hear General Vargas talking on the radio. Sometimes he will address fellow Ranger teams working alongside you, while on other occasions he’ll address you directly to update your assignments.
You will come across tons of characters with HUGE dialogue trees that could easily take 5-10 minutes to go through. Most dialogue options are unique, but some are recurring, like their thoughts on the Desert Rangers, which further complements worldbuilding.
Wasteland 1 events involving the player are often referenced. An angry man told me that we (the Rangers) shot an orphan and his dog in his village 15 years ago. I googled "wasteland orphan dog" and got the article about the boy with his original 1988 animated sprite from Wasteland 1. Turns out we killed his dog who had rabies, then accidentally killed the boy as he attacked us too. Now that's some serious world-building material for lore enthusiasts!
You will come across tons of these difficult choices in Wasteland 2.
Frustrating Mechanics
Like many RPGs, there’s a fair degree of imbalance. Loot and economy related skills and perks become obsolete as soon as you have Weaponsmithing & access to the Ranger Citadel (about 2 hours into the game) and some weapons have large power gaps (with assault rifles and snipers at the top).
Whether intended or not, the first quarter of the game is best passed with one weapon skill and two non-weapon skills per ranger, which makes it difficult to get all the core skills before skillpoints become plentiful later on.
While world-related challenges have soft skill checks (% success chance with possibility to retry), dialogue-based challenges have hard checks (min. skill level to pass in one of the three dialogue skills: Hard Ass, Smart Ass & Kiss Ass) for better or for worse. And you can’t predict when you’re gonna need which level of which, so...
Most choices have no right answer, but some have only wrong answers. You will come across a sick, incapacitated woman that asks you for mercy killing. Leave her be and she'll live in perpetual agony. Or kill her, instantly triggering an event where her caretaker miraculously reappears after a long absence.
General Thoughts
Overall, I think that the game is a rather good take on the RPG elements found in other isometric, turn-based RPGs.
As with many RPGs (esp. classless ones), perfectionists will have to do a lot of research and/or do a test run before (re)starting the game with viable builds (I got 100 hours on rec and am only a quarter in because I tested, restarted & went about 1/6 in, then restarted again on Ranger difficulty).
There are a lot of routes. Often you’ll be able to walk through the front door or break in from behind, with each route making checks for different skills.

Not the Fallout 2 itch I was looking for but was the Fallout Tactics I didn't know I still needed.

Good quarantine game. Lots to explore and decent writing

This is a game that you really need to invest your time in if you want the best experience possible. I played this before the directors cut was released, so if you play this version of the game, you have to be aware of some of the differences such as no perks, quirks, and voiceover, graphics, and bugs. If you haven’t played this before, but played some of the old school fallout games, then most of the menu layouts and concepts from those games will be immediately recognizable to you in this game. There really is a lot to explore and uncover in this game, as you won’t see every outcome of a decision you make on your first play through. The gameplay is pretty straight-forward, kind of annoying at first since you will always be weak and low-skilled, but as you progress you become a death squadron and basically destroys anything in sight. I will say that the gameplay and the side quests really make the game shine, but the pacing of the main story is slow, with the second half of the game being much more enjoyable and different from the first half. Overall, it’s a fun experience and definitely something to own if you are into old school rpgs. If you can play the directors cut, but this game is still fine.

OK, I've got three cows and a chicken following my group of rangers. All of them give me magical bonuses in my search for broken toasters. Thank god I've harvested enough bat feces to buy more ammunition from the headquarters since these horse sized fruit flies are killing my troops.

This game is an amazing journey, you start off weak but am able to build yourself and your team up into an all star cast.
This game is wasteland, and it is fallout 1 & 2, for any hater who says, "it's not the best thing ever made, it's only a GOOD game, meh", those people are right it's a good game. If people play a game just because they expect it to be the best game ever made, they are diluting themselves and they are setting themselves up to be disappointed.
This game is a hundreds of hours romp through a great CRPG, that will leave you excited to wasteland 3. Hell I need to get back into the directors cut. ;) This game is great, it is fun, it will leave you wanting more. Well done.

Game is really fun, but corrupt saves and save losses really put a damper on the overall experience. If you make sure to regularly back up your saves you'll be fine, otherwise you'll lose dozens of hours of progress.