Artsy GTA
Crackdown is a conceptual sandbox game. It's really a showcase of an outstanding achievement in ludic art.
The artistic approach the developers did, is in fact a bold move. In an area filled with stereotyped consumers that usually aren't into inovation in any other aspect than gameplay, Crackdown delievers a city and its inhabitants that could be part of a Vertigo comic book, rather than a Marvel one. This analogy possibly just hits a nich of people, but it's actually to that audience that Crackdown should please. And we can see by now that this is true, by looking to players reviews - many people don't dig artistic approaches to a formula they know. For instance, this should illustrate what I'm trying to say:
Gamespot gave the game a 7.8, and as we all know Gamespot (GS) although an extremelly good, polished and trustable site, it's a mainstream one with all the idiosyncracities associated. On the other hand Eurogamer (and they're known for some PS bias) gave the game a 9 and couldn't praise it more. Eurogamer's approach on video-gaming is not meant to please a wider audience as GS, they're pleased with different stuff.
I won't go into details about the game. Everyone knows by now what it's substance, what differs is... everything else.
All in all I'm very pleased this happed to the video-games, and to 360 is particular.
A classy game.