Borderlands is a great game. Borderlands 2 is a great game. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel isn't a great game and that's the problem.
Overall Borderlands The Pre-Sequel returns to the hole too many times. I don't know if it's a lack of skill, a lack of design, or a lack of writing, but the Pre-sequel just isn't that memorable a game.
I played the entire game on PS3, and booted it up again on PC about 6 months later, and to be honest. What I remember of the game isn't a good thing. There's innovation here, but it's not good. The idea of Oxygen is a novel concept but it seems to be thrown out just to change up the pace of the game, not because it's a good feature. The New classes are weak, and there are really two types of players. The guys who like Claptrap and play his class (which is interesting though gets annoying) and the people who don't which use the other three classes (plus DLC).
The thing is, the classes in Borderlands 2 were evolutions of the classes in Borderlands, and that's a safe bet. I'm sure it's been criticized for not innovating enough, but the thing is, I didn't like any of the classes in this game. I wasn't drawn to them, except claptrap and even then his skill is a bit too random.
The story though is what I feel like is the biggest problem, now Anthony Burch has been funny, but I've found that while I still enjoy the original Hey Ash Series, and Borderlands 2, I haven't really liked anything he's done after Borderlands 2. I don't know what changed, and it'd be easy to say "he ham-fisted social commentary into the game." and yes he did that quite often. However, social commentary can be done well, the problem is even when the social commentary isn't being pushed in your face (which does happen). The script of The Pre-Sequel isn't that interesting.
The game revolves around one of the best characters in the series, Handsome Jack. It even has a doppelganger of Jack as a playable character DLC. The problem is Jack is never the same as the previous games. Everyone remembers Butt Stallion, that line sealed Jack's personality as awesomeness.
Jack's never there, I don't remember a really good scene or line from Handsome Jack in the Pre-Sequel, and he's there to carry the ENTIRE game. In the other games, you're going up against him, now you spend more time with him and he's less. It's not an overabundance of great lines that ruins it, it's that there's not really a great line, that ever makes you like the character as much as you did in the previous games.
Of course there's a number of other characters that have completely changed and that's a problem too, the social commentary is placed on a number of popular characters like Torque, and such, but this is a prequel, so the over the top characters, have a conscious in this game, but no explanation why they changed from the touchy-feely version of the characters to the insane characters later in the series.
However this isn't a problem of "the writing is bad", because of the game itself just. It's a shadow of the previous two games and never rises to the heights of the previous game.
Most of the quests are dull, the flow of the game is disjointed, and the final battle is... insanely hard, especially if you try to solo it.
Now, if you absolutely loved Borderlands and Borderlands 2, then yes, you should grab the pre-sequel, but personally, I would have preferred a second run through of Borderlands 2, rather than playing this. However I did buy it on the PC, as part of a humble bundle, so I could get the DLC and finally play that. Though as I do that, I'm reminded that the main game, just doesn't stand up to the other two entries in the series.
2.0