Not really a metal gear fan, only played the first and 3rd but i'm loving this. Done the first 8 episodes, not especially far in but i'm playing it like i do Hitman and going for the perfect sneak playthrough, sneak past everybody and only knock them out if i absolutely have to, so it's taking me a while. I keep forgetting that you don't get a rank for side ops and try to do them the same when it's not necessary. I like how the enemy adapts, some of them on mine now have helmets on so i can't simply tranq them in the head and put them to sleep immediately. bastards!
The last side op i did was in that starting village, after finally remembering i didn't need to sneak, i decided to change things up, stuck on flight of the valkyries on my cassette player and rode in hiding at the side of my horse, the guards all got suspicious, then as they all got close enough i popped back up on my horse and threw a grenade and blew them all up. It was perfectly sync'd to the song and it felt awesome. Then i changed the song to daryl Hall's Maneater and ran around the area freely and looted everything before dancing my way out.
Don't have many criticisms so far and I'm led to believe there's another map later on but i'm disappointed in Afghan. Once you get over how good it looks, it quickly becomes repetitive. Vast amounts of emptiness scattered with a handful of outposts, and once you figure out the best ways in and out you can simply do the same thing for each mission in that outpost. The outpost to the far west that's just a square with towers on each corner and a big open court area inside is the easiest thing to sneak in and out of, can finish any mission in there without being seen in a few minutes max.
Oh and why the hell did they make the connecting paths to each section in mother base so bloody long? Very tedious to spend 2 minutes driving in a straight line there and back.