An enjoyable but short ride. A solid game that didn't crash once and has a great story.
The story to Homefront is that North Korea, over the past 15 years, has become a superpower. They eventually invade the United States and begin an occupation. That by itself isn't fresh but the small details are very interesting. You find newspaper clippings scattered throughout the levels and they detail events that span present day to 2025 when the game takes place. The failing of the economy, flu epidemics, gas shortages, looting and more paint an interesting back story of what lead up to the occupation. My only complaint was that the ending felt very rushed. The campaign only took me 3 hours to beat on normal difficulty. That's not enough time to tell a proper story. Two things I was happy to see was that I could change the difficulty mid game if I wished and that there a healthy number of graphics options to tinker with. AA, AF, Vsync, as well as about 5-6 other options are available. Another note I would like to make is the stability. I may have only played for 3 hours but the game didn't crash once. I also applaud the use of real locations. Having a firefight in a Tiger Direct store and then having it move to the parking lot of Hooters was a very cool experience. The save system was a checkpoint save system which saved often enough not to cause me problems. However you can only reload the most recent checkpoint which may cause some people issues.
Homefront uses the Unreal 3 engine and it isn't even the prettiest game using that. No part is downright ugly at all but Far Cry 2 had better fire. Crysis had better character models, better vegetation, and better water. Bad Company 2 had better destruction. I know none of those games mentioned use the Unreal 3 but if you want an example then look no further than Rainbow Six Vegas which I believe had better character models and better vehicle detail than Homefront.
One of the saving graces of Homefront was the shooting was fun. The enemy AI does an adequate job of taking cover and trying to flank you. It's no F.E.A.R. But it was alright. There is a good variety of straight shooting missions, vehicle sections, missions where I had to provide cover with a sniper rifle. It had a great balance so that none of the parts got boring. The controls to the helicopter was a little wonky but I got the hang of it. Making it descend seemed to take more effort than it should have. According to the options menu it should have been one button but that wasn't the case for me. There were also points where to progress you had to stand in the exact spot the game wanted you to or it wouldn't work. The friendly AI was constantly standing in my line of fire and once or twice they would get tangled up with a wall and get stuck. Once I even had to restart the checkpoint to fix their issue with the wall. There was a healthy variety of guns and they were fun to shoot. You can't ask much more from a shooter.
The voice acting was alright. Some points seemed a bit over the top but nothing really bothered me. The sound effects for the weapons were very well done. The sound of a headshot was nicely done as well.
Overall I recommend Homefront to shooter fans. It is a short experience but an enjoyable one. I haven't tried the online as that is not my cup of tea. It does have an online mode for those who want to give it a go. There's not much replay value unless you a Steam achievement junkie.
8/10