Repetative...
The graphics were fine, I really had no problem with them. I enjoyed how the characters actually looked like the people they were based on, although the extreme swaying Jack Sparrow did in order to liken his digital form to his on-screen drunken sway was very, very overdone. That not withstanding the rest of the characters moved alright, especially in the fight scenes. Clothes moved with the movements and the environments looked great.
The fight scenes, primarily the boss scenes, were also very repetitive. If you want to kill a mini-boss, just do a simple swipe-swipe-punch-swipe two or three times and then lay on the mini-boss with your Special Trigger move. As long as they GAVE you regular people to kill. I can remember at least twice where I ran in a circle away from the boss trying to get the regular mobs to spawn again, as trying to gain energy from a boss in order to do your special move only results in you getting stabbed in the face. Was I the only one finding that in the later boss fights, when you told the character to do one thing, he wouldn't do it? At all? He was OK when you wanted just to swipe at the Boss, but if you actually wanted to lunge after that overhead swipe you were out of luck!
Most of the levels were repeats of themselves, find the gold, find the special items, 1-2 mini-boss fights, and a few jump and climb puzzles. I really enjoyed them all, don't get me wrong, but it feel like I'd done each level before as I went though them. A few items did make the levels liven up a bit though, a grenado here, a rolling barrel of gunpowder there.. all in all good fun.
Fighting as Elizabeth was just terrible. I don't know if it was just low powered shots, or how clumsily she actually connected. It was worse when you let them fight on their own in the instances where you had to control more than one people. These superb swordsmen became dolts when you weren't controlling them, which really made accomplishing anything in those levels difficult.
The storyline, I noticed, actually encompassed the last two movies, not just the last one. It squeezed in there a slightly confused version of the second movie, and then had to scream through the third. I can't really beat them up for altered storylines, as you tend to have to give and take a bit to make things fit. But why put the second movie in there at all? Could you not have made the third movie on its own? Not enough interesting places and events to make a game on its own? Meh. I understand that I'm bad talking a LOT of this game. In the end I really did enjoy accomplishing it. I can't mention enough the repetitiveness of it, but I liked the puzzles, the "TAKE THAT"-ness of shooting someone in the face when for some reason you just couldn't make that sword connect. I enjoyed the Dunes of Delirium a lot, and the slapstick endings most of the boss fights.
There were a TON of achievements that you could get in this game. Approximately 2 per level: One for simply completing the level (thus unlocking a finishing move for a character) and one for finding all of the special pieces (maps, bottles of rum, jolly rogers) on that level. On each level there was also a Calypso Chest which once all 11 pieces were found, unlocked the story of Davy Jones and Calypso in the Extras menu. The ability to go back and replay levels let you finish any of these that you may have missed, and increase your Game Score (read here as Notoriety.)
I wouldn't own it, but I might borrow it again to finish getting that last 100 Souls achievement :)