Rating: WARTY!
You know, you may be passionate about playing trading-card games or about video games, but unless you can turn that passion into a story that will appeal to those who have no interest in your cards or your gaming, then you're not going to sell many books. This was the problem here.
First off, the plot made no sense and secondly, there was far too much technical crap going on and too little story-telling. On top of that, and given that the book was subtitled "Opening Moves" it portended the predictable series to milk as much out of readers as could be got, and worse even than this, there was a clear but unengaging attempt at a love interest right from the start which was as predictable as it fell flat.
The plot is supposed to be that Earth was invaded by aliens who brought, among other things, "A fully immersive virtual reality called the Game." The problem is that the game is so 'Earth' that there's nothing alien about it. It doesn't remotely suggest alien. It suggests a young author thinking solely in Earth terms about his own interests and trying to project this onto aliens.
The game is all about garnering inventory and adding points to your stamina and so on, just like any game that's out there. There's nothing new or different in it and it makes no sense. Worse, we're offered no reason whatsoever why anyone should be so interested in playing it (other than those who play these things anyway). I mean why would people voluntarily support an alien construction like this? They're not forced to play, so why wouldn't they simply boycott it as a small rebellion against alien rule?
Alan is supposed to be this college student (read 'the author') who can't wait to join the game. We're told next to nothing about him or his studies or why he is so desperate to be in the game, in the same way we're told nothing about the aliens or how they managed to overpower Earth. The story got so technical in terms of game-play from that point on that I lost all interest in it, because: no story! It offered nothing to pique my curiosity or stir my interest, and it was so boring. The characters were uninteresting and the only good thing I can say about this novel is that it wasn't in first person, so there is that. But I can't commend this based on the introductory portion of it that I read.
