Well, it&#x27;s subjective, of course. What was novel to me was the listening-for-sounds system which really made the stealth parts far more immersive and enabled them to play with dark and cramped stealth levels without it becoming impossible to beat.<p>Also I felt it was the pinnacle of Naughty Dog storytelling, driven by the lessons they had learned in the excellent Uncharted series. The fact they were able to create a game in which nearly the entire time is spent side-by-side with an AI-driven character you start to really care about was quite an accomplishment.<p>One more thing that sticks out for me is that I&#x27;d say Last of Us has the most gripping prologue &#x2F; first ten minutes I have ever seen in a video game, and that that narrative is held quite taut throughout the game.<p>The game has an average rating of 95 on Metacritic, so I realize this is the mainstream take on it, but I still think the hype is justified in this case.