In terms of climate and topography, very similar to Thailand or another SE Asian country. Hot, humid, rains a lot. Lot of plains and rolling hills. Rice, rubber, cocoa, oil palm, very green. Lots of mosquitoes.
The country's poor as hell. It was doing quite well in the late 90s and then the civil war just destroyed it and it never came back. So when you travel around Monrovia (the capital) even the better built buildings are basic as hell, and just so worn down. So many tiny super-basic houses with seemingly 10-12 people in them. A lot of really skinny, hungry looking unemployed guys just sitting around. Tons of handicapped people- I think there was a big polio problem. The income level is similar to Afghanistan but the poverty here is much more obvious and in your face, it's pretty hard to get used to.
It's okay being here, at least for expats like me. There is a huge Lebanese diaspora here and they make everything work. So most of the good shops, restaurants, bars, gyms, etc are Lebanese owned and operated. And Lebanese know service and hospitality. So they are much better than I expected. There are quite a lot of beachside places- my apartment is about 20m from the sea- and some of them are exactly like the nice places I used to go to in Lebanon. Other places remind me a lot of Thailand- big open air places with tin roofs. Not easy to buy stuff here because almost everything comes from the port, and it's very slow and inefficient. So things appear in the shops, and then they vanish for months. At least the taxes on booze are low. Wine especially is pretty affordable and an okay range.
Security-wise, it's okay. You can walk around the main streets during the day time. I've been told by a lot of people not to walk around with a laptop bag. There are a lot of burglaries, but the compounds where most expats stay are pretty secure. I have massive fuckoff bars on every window, a huge lockable iron gate on the front of my floor. and there are 4-5 security giards around at all times.