To put it succinctly, Rage was designed to look good in screen shots. Graphics engine performance, low-res textures, and confining invisible walls are glaring weak performers.

For the graphics engine, id relies on Tech 5 version of their in-house developed engine circa 2011. It is plainly developed with consoles in mind and not the higher performance standards of today's PCs. Texture pop-ins are unavoidable even after implementing patches and id-suggested tweaks. I've never seen pop-ins so bad on a modern game. Pop-ins are extremely evident when you turn your character and terrain textures appear as extremely low-res for a split second before the engine loads the higher resolution texture. It's kind of sad that id doesn't have the shiniest, red-hot, smokin'-est game engine. Especially since they've always been crap for story--the graphics were always the "but at least it looks AMAZING!!" fall back. Not anymore.

I don't understand the prevalent use of extremely low-res textures for items and objects in your immediate viscinity. It's mind-boggling. I can't fathom how anyone thinks that was a good idea for a PC release. Now, there are some post-release tweaks you can do to some config files that will load higher resolution textures but it's odd that they make you do that little tweak yourself.

Lastly, another unavoidable issue is the "on-rails" feeling of the areas. Invisible walls are prevalent and obnoxious. Call it console-itis. It's a sad artifact of porting from a console.

Some high points are the character's facial animations and the models themselves. They're quite nice and rival any of the better implementations seen in LA Noire or even Borderlands 2.

The "crafting" and RPG elements, while not amazing, are strong enough to lend some depth to the game especially for an id story. I've no real complaints there.

All in all, I purchased the game for $5 and that's about what I think the game is worth on the PC. It's worth a shot at a low price point.