Honestly, I think this is a great show for people who haven't played the game. However, for those of us who are cursed to have done so, it is an incredible let-down. Scenes that are not part of the game's storyline and don't do much to further the plot are drawn-out and turned into whole episodes, while scenes that are some of the most important and impactful in the game are dismissed, have different chapters merged into one scene, and lack the sense of high stakes that was ever present in the source material.

The first 2 episodes are spectacular and extremely loyal to the game, but everything after that is what I would consider a series of bad decisions, with the 2 last episodes of the 1st season being perhaps the biggest disappointment in television since the final season of Game of Thrones. The presence of the infected, which is one of the core aspects of the lore, is lackluster to say the least, with many scenes that have major fights against tons of them in the game being turned into 30-second scenes with few or no infected in the show. Same thing goes for other enemies. For a show with a big budget, it sure felt like they were on a crunch for money and wanted to save on SFX and on side characters/ensembles. The 2 last episodes should've been spread out into at least 4 episodes for the story not to feel as rushed as it did and for this show to have any chance of redemption.

My advice: if you haven't played the game yet, go do that and forget about this show of mediocrity. But if you feel like you really need to watch this, do it before playing the game. It will feel much less underwhelming.

7/10 is the score I give it trying my best to pretend that I haven't played the game. With the game in mind, this is a 5/10 tops.

HBO, do better.