A GoTY contender, no doubt, but doesn't live up to the hype.
First, the bad, and this will be short because there is little to complain about. My chief complaint about this game is the actual first-person shooting. This is an FPS, after all, and as such, the FPS aspect of the game should be good. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The shooting gets extremely repetitive and boring after a while. In fact, if it weren't for the plasmids, in other words, if this game was a straight-forward shooter, this game wouldn't be close to being as great as it is. Upgrading your guns adds a much-needed punch to keep it going, and different bullets also adds a bit of strategy to the mix, but the star of the show is plasmids.
There, now for the good. Most of all, this game gives you a story... an AMAZING story. The story is enthralling, it sucks you in, it keeps you sucked, and it doesn't let go. The best part of the story is that it doesn't break the gameplay. The story flows. You learn the story with radio messages and through recordings which you can listen to whenever you want. Good stories are rare in video games. Great stories are even rarer. There are the usual suspects, like Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda and Metal Gear Solid, but when a game comes out of no where and has a great story like this... it's really a breath of fresh air.
Second, the gameplay. I'm an advocate of gameplay over graphics, and this game shows us how important gameplay is (thankfully, the graphics are great too, so it's not so much a gameplay over graphics as much as a gameplay AND graphics). It's not only the abilities, called plasmids in the game, it's also the atmosphere. It's the world... it's a living, breathing world. Splicers go about their business, Big Brothers and Little Sisters collect their Adam. I like to just stand back and watch them, just because it's so interesting seeing the AI do their own thing. The mood is creepy at times, not to mention disturbing. The whole world of Rapture is disturbing. The whole back story will make you think. Why did everything go so wrong? Who are these characters whose names keep popping up? The game is set up in such a way that you really want to know. You can't help but want to keep finding new recorders to keep learning about the story. That's something so hard to do, and so rare in games.
The visuals are great. They're not as stunning as Gears of War (still, I think, the best looking console game ever), but they do just fine. The lighting gives off the right mood. Dark corridors are scary because they're dark. The level design is fantastic, the character models are superb as well, without all that annoying glow that we see in a lot of games. Where the game really shines, though, is in the water. Which makes sense... it's an underwater city. The water effects in this game are excellent. Some of the best water ever made for any game. Overall, this game is fantastic. I wouldn't be surprised, or upset, if it won Game of the Year. It's definitely worthy. That being said, I can't agree with some reviews giving this game a perfect 10. Of course, it's all a matter of personal preference. It's as close to perfect as we have come in a long time. If you have a 360 or a PC, get this game. This is the proof that critics needed: video games can be an art.