Not a few days after its release Brink polarized many of the people who have played it: On one hand you have reviewers like IGN and Joystiq saying it's plagued with bad design choices and harping on the game's technical issues (which Splash Damage immediately began addressing), and on the other you have the players who are genuinely enjoying Brink for everything new that it brings to the table despite the technical difficulties. The only people on the middle ground seem to be the ones who haven't yet purchased the game because they're waiting for the dust to settle and all the problems to get fixed but still have an interest in it.
Even over a half decade later, confusion still exists between whether people enjoyed the game and hated it, or if the game was actually really good and people were overly critical. It's ironic given the game's overall themes.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Designing a black guy with skull facepaint, The Wasted jacket, The G pants, and dreadlocks is a very popular choice among players, possibly because of how grungy it looks and how it is damn near invisible on the infamous Container City map and Shipyard map. It may have originated with an Xbox player named Haru Daniels (Who has now renamed himself Fluffywolf36).
Game-Breaker: One of the main points of contention early in the game's life was the first part of the map Container City. Perhaps due to a lack of testing, there was a chokepoint that was almost literally impossible for the Security to break out of if the Resistance players were even halfway competent. This easily defensible spot was also nearly adjacent to the Security's spawn point, making it a serious problem for the latter team. As time progressed, players began to find strategies to offset this imbalance.
That one asian Resistance member's "EXACTLY!" and nearly every cutscene makes reference to the founders "living in luxury" and how the guests are their "slaves".
The Splash Damage CEO's "Brink takes place on the Ark..." speech.
Chen's bombastic "FOR THE AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKK!!!" and variants thereof could qualify among players.
Narm: The mission where the Resistance tries to blow up the Reactor has the violent radical resistance member from the cut-scenes replace Chen as Mission Control, since Chen is unaware of this mission. Unfortunately, they forgot to include lines for when Security takes over a command post; When that happens, you'll suddenly hear Chen freaking out about it.
On the PC Version, numerous startup bugs, random crashes to desktop, sound card issues, etc.
Online mode on the 360 version at release was so plagued by lag that it renders the game almost completely unplayable, even with a fantastic internet connection. Thankfully later patches remedied this.
So Okay, It's Average: What the general consensus seems to be for the game. While it does have some interesting ideas and a pretty well-done Character Customization, the gameplay is quite a mixed bag, and wasn't as good as other titles around the time.
Because of the random nature of competitive shooters as your team, the enemy team, and the randomly generated AI bots, how a mission plays can be radically different between attempts. One run of Container City can be exceptionally easy, while a second run at Container City on the same faction as last time and on the same character can result in you being shut out entirely and never accomplishing even a single mission or defending an objective effectively for the entire match.
The final objective of Security Day 3. It is the longest and most indirect of the retrieval missions, there are many different places where the enemy can ambush the carrier, and the allied bots refuse to help the carrier.
Container City, at least when you play as Security when trying to blow up the gate. The Security don't have that many pathways to their objective (only 2, and one is hackable) and if there's a tactical advantage, the Resistance have it. It gets much more balanced later on.
Be More Objective, two-stars. This challenge is the subject of many posts on message boards.
All Hacking objectives on the offense, combining the worst parts of Bomb (get to a tiny point to start, defend said point from even a few seconds of Engineer action, all progress lost if stopped) and Repair (locks down a player or several who has to do nothing but work on the objective for a long long time, relying on teammates for defense, stops if player is incapacitated). Security Day 6 is the worst offender here.
On the other hand, Hacking objectives are the only objectives that don't require you to be stationary
Yes but if with bots they never stay in a good and easily defensible position instead going out into the open.
There are basically two missions that both sides have an unbearable time finishing.
The entire Shipyard mission for Security is an absolute nightmare given you practically have to jog cross-country to get to the objectives while the Resistance spawn points for the objective are on the other side of the wall from it. Then there's the fact that the entire second objective is a hacking mission, so now you're in a situation where the objective progress can be flushed down the toilet in seconds if an engineer gets anywhere near that easily reached hack-box.
The reactor mission for the Resistance is awful. There's basically no cover for the first mission and the Security forces can easily reach you with minimal effort. The Security are the ones this time with the spawn benefit being close to the objective, and the ways into the reactor core are so small, narrow, and confusing, that you'll be hit by hails of bullets while trying to get anywhere near the objective for the second part. Then you somehow have to keep them away from the bomb for forty agonizing seconds, all of which has to be restarted if their engineers succeed in busting the HE Charge off of the reactor.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: What little story there is has been praised for its unique premise and averting FPS cliches by managing to make both sides sympathetic. However, it's often overlooked in favor of the mediocre gameplay.
Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The artists went with a deliberately exaggerated style of character design that emphasizes key features of each model's outward appearance, both for a distinctive look and ease of identification at a distance, much like a certain other multiplayer shooter. The fact that they applied realistic textures to these stylized models, however, does not help their case.
For the film:
Abandon Shipping: In a rare case of this happening while a person watches the film, it's not unheard of for people to watch the film going in blind while hoping Val and Brink will get together, due to the sheer amounts of Ho Yay. These feelings are likely to dissipate when Val shows off his racist side, and outright vanish when he sabotages a race-course to hurt Gabriella, uncaring that her injury could have been much worse.
Accidental Innuendo: When proposing a challenge to the Soul Skaters, Val says that if they lose, "it's open season on your butts". When Mom Can't Cook! covered the film, they were laughing for a solid minute while noting that Val's somewhat-flirtatious nature only added to it.
Awesome Music: The ska-heavy soundtrack fits perfectly with the skating theme and compliments the more relaxed Soul-Skaters.
Ho Yay: The writing and interactions between Val and Brink are often compared to (very aggressive) flirting from the former towards the latter. Val's at-times slow delivery and intense stares do not help.
Jerkass Woobie: Andy's dad is certainly a bit grumpy at times, but we find out that he's extremely worried about the family losing any money to keep things going, and understandably struggling as a parent with some of the complications of adolescence.
Love to Hate: Sam Horrigan does an excellent job as Val, playing up the sleazy fake-charm and cutthroat nature of the character.
Moral Event Horizon: Although Val spends most of his time as just a Jerkass, he crosses the line when he sabotages the race-track and injures Gabriella's arm, which very fortunately didn't result in any permanent or long-lasting damage.
Squick: For an ostensibly family-friendly film, the makeup/injury shots of Gabriella's injury in the lead-up to the climax looks surprisingly realistic and all the more disgusting for it.
and Joystiq