People may be offended by how similar to God of War it is, but still it's hard to deny the fact that the game is fun.
So instead of dwelling on the obvious comparisons let's get this out of the way. Dante's Inferno plays almost exactly like God of War. OK? Are we good? Need to take a break? No? Good. Now that we've moved beyond that let's judge the game on its own merits and how it measures up to the standards of the genre.
Dante's Inferno is 'inspired' by the classic piece of literature The Divine Comedy, primarily that of 'The Inferno'. And by 'inspired' I mean 'removing everything but the imagery' which actually works to the game's advantage as it uses the most interesting part of the poem instead of adapting it into something doomed to failure, it takes creative license which I can only encourage other games based off other IP's to do.
Your descent into Hell begins with Dante Alighieri, holy knight extraordinaire, fighting in the crusades in Acre. Unfortunately Dante gets stabbed in the back and left for dead, where Death comes for his soul to drag him down to hell for his various sins. Instead of lying down and taking it Dante fights off Death and takes Death's famous scythe for his own. Deciding he's finished fighting, Dante returns home excited to finally return to his beloved wife Beatrice, but instead he comes home to find her dead. Dante witnesses his wife's soul being dragged into Hell by some dark entity, compelling Dante to give pursuit and kick open the gates of hell.
Dante as a character himself is a great protagonist who has a lot of dark secrets in his past that makes him more interesting than one would think considering other main 'characters' in the genre. The plot is compelling and well told with a strong combination of CGI, anime and in-game cut scenes (Even with a somewhat cheap and disappointing ending) and the voice acting is fantastic, but the real star of the show is the Inferno itself.
You travel through the 9 Circles of Hell on your quest for redemption, and if there's anything Dante's Inferno succeeds at compared to other games in its genre is that its environments are more than bland boxes which exist for the sole purpose for you to beat the stuffing out of other dudes in. The environments are equally jaw-dropping and gorgeous as they are disturbing and horrendous as you travel through a penis-shaped tower in the circle of Lust, to a forest made out of the people who've committed suicide. As with Visceral's previous game, Dead Space, Dante's Inferno creates an outstanding setting for players to experience and explore.
The presentation ties directly into the combat as the game runs at a constant 60 FPS (Frames-per-second) that feels silky smooth and adds a real weight to your attacks. I honestly cannot believe that this isn't a standard for Hack 'N Slash games as it really enhances the experience and makes the combat run at an incredibly lively pace.
Speaking of the combat, Dante's Inferno succeeds in adapting God of War's combat system and letting you explore them in intense combat situations. You can block, counter-attack, and mash light and heavy attacks all night long. But like their previous game, Visceral Games add some interesting elements to the base gameplay. Instead of overloading you with a bunch of useless weapons like in other games you get only two fully developed weapons, the scythe and a holy cross that acts like a shotgun, blasting enemies away with holy energies and doesn't limit you in using it. Switching between the two weapons is smooth and feels completely natural, and at certain times I used only the holy cross because it was so damn fun.
Though the coolest thing in Dante's Inferno is that way you can build your character. You have an upgrade tree with a Holy and an Unholy side as deep as most RPG's where you can either power up your cross or your scythe by spending your enemies souls on upgrades. The tree also levels up on either side as you punish or absolve enemies and Shades (People you can interact with in the Inferno) and gives access to more upgrades. Also you'll obtain items called 'relics' which you can equip that drastically changes your fighting style, and there's a ton of them so your customization possibilities are surprisingly deep. By allowing you to dictate your fighting style and powers, Dante's Inferno creates a niche for itself in the genre.
Unfortunately though it also doesn't help that the game hits a lot of low spots in the experience. The majority of puzzles are incredibly simple and are nothing that'll stimulate the 'ol grey matter. Sometimes the puzzles are even detrimental to experience as you'll need to jump and platform around to push blocks this-way-and-that, but the platforming mechanic is borderline broken which led to most of my deaths being jumping-related instead of combat-related. One circle of Hell in particular focuses on this, and ultimately becomes the worst level in the game.
Another issue is that the last third of the game is a gigantic letdown. After a missed opportunity with a giant demon and running around in a couple cool circles you enter Fraud, a circle devoted to liars and cheats. But instead of tackling something interesting, the entire circle is just divided up by 10 boring challenge rooms like 'Stay in the air for 8 seconds'. Ultimately it feels tacked-on and weak that only serves to pad out the length of this already short game.
Following that is the last circle which changes up the art style in an interesting way, but throws you a stupid bridge walking scene and a broken final boss fight that practically requires you to upgrade one of your weapons to a certain point. It was so frustratingly hard that I actually had to turn down the difficult in my haze of rage as I almost threw a controller. This is incredibly disappointing as the game starts off so well, but just seems to run out of steam at the last act.
Ultimately Dante's Inferno will probably be one of the most diverse games this year, if not this generation. The hellish art style and profound use of mature themes will excite some and turn away others, its gameplay inspired by other popular games in the same genre will get the fan boys angry, and its terrible final act will piss off many. But for me I found a well-told and engaging story of a believable hero trying to face his own sins and an incredibly detailed world that few games have ever tried to tackle with the developers giving it the respect it deserves. People may be offended by how similar to God of War it is, but still it's hard to deny the fact that the game is still incredibly fun to play and experience.