tl;dr Skip it. It's unoptimized, the story is generic (and worse than the typical monster hunter storyline) and functions as an 8 to 20 hour delay on actually getting to the real gameplay, and it has less content than the previous two titles (World, Rise). Go get one of those if you absolutely must play Monster Hunter.

I really enjoy Monster Hunter and overall, I enjoyed my time in Wilds. Except for the performance. And the slow, agonizing, generic, boring story. And the performance. And the rampant DLC spam. And the performance.

If the game ran better, I'd be on the fence about recommending it. The iterations that were made on the weapons and combat I found to be mostly good ones (RIP Lance) but the story tax to get to the "real" game is extremely obnoxious (one of my friends lost his save file due to a corruption bug and refuses to go through the story again). Strangely, I don't play Monster Hunter for a generic C-tier fantasy story that doesn't even focus on my character as the main character (this is a personal opinion, but I loathe game stories where my character is a replaceable supporting character). Normally, I would not hold a mediocre or bad story against a Monster Hunter game, it's previously been entirely skippable. I am here to fight and hunt monsters (ya know, like a Monster Hunter) but CAPCOM forces you to witness almost the entire thing (including mandatory lore walks through the environments where the NPCs painful comment on how everything is beautiful and precious instead of letting the player just run around organically do so for themselves). Depending on your playstyle and speed, the mandatory story portion of the game will take anywhere from 8 to 20 hours. This is compounded by the handler character refusing to authorize any "unencountered" monster from the story, removing almost all rewards from hunting "non-approved monsters" even if you trip across them while exploring an enviroment. Again, this wouldn't be a big deal, except the handler reminds you that "YOUR ACTIONS ARE NOT GUILD APPROVED" and "YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO HUNT THIS MONSTER" every 15 seconds while you fight the "unauthorized" monster.

Waxing on about the handler. She does not have a mute button. She also repeats the same lines of dialogue over. and over. and over. These lines of dialogue are mostly the same 5 loading screen tips about "don't forget, you can carve monster parts!" "oh, we should track the monster!" "you can return to base to get more supplies". The number 1 mod I looked for was a mute button for the handler.

Capcom just wants to make money. The game has had more cosmetic updates than content updates. At time of writing, there are 64 cosmetic DLCs totaling $180 USD. The latest updated added more paid cosmetics and managed to tank the performance further.

There have been several title updates since the game launched. They added 1 monster and did the normal Apex, Super Apex, Super Duper Apex stat padding to the existing roster. Current tinfoil hat theories suggest that most of the title update content was ready to go day 1, but was intentionally cut to pad out the title updates. This wouldn't be a huge deal to me, but the launch roster of monsters was skint, even accounting that normal rosters have repeats of the same monster (i.e. the Great Bird Wyverns). Combined with the prior point, it feels like this is a test run for future Monster Hunter titles to see how little content they can get away with producing before people stop buying the cosmetics.

World's meta was singular. There was an objectively correct set of skills to have for every weapon (and it was basically the same). World's expansion, Iceborne, did little to alleviate this issue. If you're like me and enjoy buildcrafting and developing interesting and different ways to effectively hunt monsters, this is a MASSIVE strike against World. I mention World here because Wilds is the same. There is (essentially) a singular correct build that is the same across every weapon. I had hopes that Wilds would take inspiration from Rise. Rise has an acceptable level of build variety (most weapons have between 3 and 7 different ways to DPS that are (mostly) distinct). To be fair, Wilds has two meta builds that are the same across most weapons, however each build does not have a distinctive playstyle (you stack crit and damage, one build gets this from a cycling passive that requires attacking the monster, the other does not need to attack the monster. The numbers between the two builds are within 10%). Coupled with a TERRIBLE end game weapon grind for insignificant upgrades (its RNG to get the right parts and RNG to get the right rolls (which are predetirmed based on your save file which means it can be possible to have a "bad" seed and never be able to get the weapon you want), these are weapons that will immediately be replaced with the expansion releases, and the damage difference between monster weapons and the crafted weapons is under 10%) and fights that are just "the monster hits harder", there's not much end game gameplay to enjoy.

Also the camera likes to make large monsters entirely invisible if the monster is between your character and the camera (previous titles outlined the player with a color). This can make some fights absolutely infuriating.

Overall, I think the glory days of Monster Hunter are behind us. If you must play a Monster Hunter, grab World for a slower paced and more tactical experience, or Rise for a high octane, action-y experience.

tl;dr Skip it. It's unoptimized, the story is generic (and worse than the typical monster hunter storyline) and functions as an 8 to 20 hour delay on actually getting to the real gameplay, and it has less content than the previous two titles (World, Rise). Go get one of those if you absolutely must play Monster Hunter. I really enjoy Monster Hunter and overall, I enjoyed my time in Wilds. Except for the performance. And the slow, agonizing, generic, boring story. And the performance. And the rampant DLC spam. And the performance. If the game ran better, I'd be on the fence about recommending it. The iterations that were made on the weapons and combat I found to be mostly good ones (RIP Lance) but the story tax to get to the "real" game is extremely obnoxious (one of my friends lost his save file due to a corruption bug and refuses to go through the story again). Strangely, I don't play Monster Hunter for a generic C-tier fantasy story that doesn't even focus on my character as the main character (this is a personal opinion, but I loathe game stories where my character is a replaceable supporting character). Normally, I would not hold a mediocre or bad story against a Monster Hunter game, it's previously been entirely skippable. I am here to fight and hunt monsters (ya know, like a Monster Hunter) but CAPCOM forces you to witness almost the entire thing (including mandatory lore walks through the environments where the NPCs painful comment on how everything is beautiful and precious instead of letting the player just run around organically do so for themselves). Depending on your playstyle and speed, the mandatory story portion of the game will take anywhere from 8 to 20 hours. This is compounded by the handler character refusing to authorize any "unencountered" monster from the story, removing almost all rewards from hunting "non-approved monsters" even if you trip across them while exploring an enviroment. Again, this wouldn't be a big deal, except the handler reminds you that "YOUR ACTIONS ARE NOT GUILD APPROVED" and "YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO HUNT THIS MONSTER" every 15 seconds while you fight the "unauthorized" monster. Waxing on about the handler. She does not have a mute button. She also repeats the same lines of dialogue over. and over. and over. These lines of dialogue are mostly the same 5 loading screen tips about "don't forget, you can carve monster parts!" "oh, we should track the monster!" "you can return to base to get more supplies". The number 1 mod I looked for was a mute button for the handler. Capcom just wants to make money. The game has had more cosmetic updates than content updates. At time of writing, there are 64 cosmetic DLCs totaling $180 USD. The latest updated added more paid cosmetics and managed to tank the performance further. There have been several title updates since the game launched. They added 1 monster and did the normal Apex, Super Apex, Super Duper Apex stat padding to the existing roster. Current tinfoil hat theories suggest that most of the title update content was ready to go day 1, but was intentionally cut to pad out the title updates. This wouldn't be a huge deal to me, but the launch roster of monsters was skint, even accounting that normal rosters have repeats of the same monster (i.e. the Great Bird Wyverns). Combined with the prior point, it feels like this is a test run for future Monster Hunter titles to see how little content they can get away with producing before people stop buying the cosmetics. World's meta was singular. There was an objectively correct set of skills to have for every weapon (and it was basically the same). World's expansion, Iceborne, did little to alleviate this issue. If you're like me and enjoy buildcrafting and developing interesting and different ways to effectively hunt monsters, this is a MASSIVE strike against World. I mention World here because Wilds is the same. There is (essentially) a singular correct build that is the same across every weapon. I had hopes that Wilds would take inspiration from Rise. Rise has an acceptable level of build variety (most weapons have between 3 and 7 different ways to DPS that are (mostly) distinct). To be fair, Wilds has two meta builds that are the same across most weapons, however each build does not have a distinctive playstyle (you stack crit and damage, one build gets this from a cycling passive that requires attacking the monster, the other does not need to attack the monster. The numbers between the two builds are within 10%). Coupled with a TERRIBLE end game weapon grind for insignificant upgrades (its RNG to get the right parts and RNG to get the right rolls (which are predetirmed based on your save file which means it can be possible to have a "bad" seed and never be able to get the weapon you want), these are weapons that will immediately be replaced with the expansion releases, and the damage difference between monster weapons and the crafted weapons is under 10%) and fights that are just "the monster hits harder", there's not much end game gameplay to enjoy. Also the camera likes to make large monsters entirely invisible if the monster is between your character and the camera (previous titles outlined the player with a color). This can make some fights absolutely infuriating. Overall, I think the glory days of Monster Hunter are behind us. If you must play a Monster Hunter, grab World for a slower paced and more tactical experience, or Rise for a high octane, action-y experience.