A steal at bargain bin prices...
Story:
Apparently, it has a story. While it starts out with seeming promise, it really goes nowhere. I honestly couldn't tell you what it's about despite being hooked early by the tone that was set in a few of the early cut scenes and trying to follow it. While I feel that having a satisfying story would have certainly added to the game, in the end the fun gameplay is enough to hold this title together. 2/10
Graphics:
This game is a stunner. The in-game environments are generally outstanding. The architecture is interesting and well rendered. I found myself stopping to simply survey and take in my surroundings quite often. The light and shadows are very well done. The detail, for the most part is impressive. I played the Killzone 2 demo around the same time as I was playing this game and I honestly think that Dark Sector looks better and more detailed - particularly in outdoor environments. (Playing on a 360 on a 42" 1080p Samsung with components - I have an HDMI on the PS3) Possibly it's just better art direction in general - but it looks that good. Some of the enemies are lacking graphically, but the environments and the glaive animations are fantastic. Textures are great. A lot of nice little details. The fire effects on a flame imbued glaive during aftertouch flight as little wisps of flame spark off are excellent, for example. 8/10
Sound:
I suppose I should note that the game sounds great. The music is fitting and at times atmospheric and suitably creepy at others. Sound effects and voice work are solid enough. 8/10
Gameplay:
Graphics aside - this is the real strength of this game. The gameplay is quite fun and engaging. There are guns aplenty but I found that I didn't want to use anything other than the glaive which becomes even more addictive as you gain more powerups/abilities for it. The pacing of the powerup gain is also well handled. You still have plenty of game left by the time you've got all the important glaive abilities. I really only used guns against enemies that were out of the glaive's range and when necessary against some of the bosses. I enjoyed the boss battles - a fair amount of trial and error but when you die you begin right at the boss battle again as opposed to having to repeat long stretches of the game just to get back to it. In short the combat controls are solid and responsive and the developers succeeded in making the glaive the preferred weapon as well as a blast to use. I found that anytime I was killed was usually the result of my own bad tactics and not cheap gameplay. You may want to hit an FAQ as some of the boss fights are rather obtuse as far as what you need to do to defeat them. 8/10
Note: I didn't try the online because A) I don't really care about online in a game like this and B) Being LTTP I'm guessing not a lot of folks are playing this game online at this point.
Tilt:
I think that unless you have some bizarre bias against this game or unreasonable expectation any fan of action games will enjoy Dark Sector. I found it immersive enough a result of the stellar art direction and sound work though this would have been helped even more if there was a coherent and engaging story of any kind. Bottom line is that there is a lot of fun to be had in Dark Sector.