Starts with a bang...ends with a bomb
Sure the graphics were intense, but with so many bugs it lost some of its flair after having to restart the game, and often the same level so many times. I made the mistake of buying the game online and downloaded it to my pc. Not good....something about having the physical media that just gives me a good feeling after spending $60. So I saved $10 downloading it...but I dont have it in my library, its in theirs. Throughout the entire game I never did see a patch come out and to date I dont know if one has.
Bugs aside, the game did offer so new aspects to the genre and did a nice job of laying out the levels. FIrst problem was that the game was just to easy. Played it on normal mode and it really presented no major challenges unless I pushed the envelope and tried things out of order. The open gameplay was a great concept, and having multiple options to achieve the same result was a nice touch as well. But with the ability to go invisible, the game lost its, on on edge of your seat, moments.
The first half of the game had my glued to my seat...but then I hit the ice cave level (or whatever it was called) and then I started with the "WTF is this?" I still dont get half the time what I was even doing, but it appeared to me that it was just the developers trying to show off the engine because some levels were incredibly pointless.
So the first half of the game gets a 10, but the second half a give a strong 5. That being said, the game gets kudos for the first half, and its enough to warrent the purchase, but the second half was so bad that I just cant see giving this game more than an 8. But then I look at all the development work that went into the engine and with the possibility of some fantastic games to come based on the new engine, I raise my bar to 8.5.