A really great game with some minor issues that can potentially last a large chunk of time. Worth the $29.99 price tag.
The gameplay is a blast. It is a third person action/third person shooter/platformer game with a hint of rpg elements. Powers are gained throughout the story and vary from a standard bolt of lightening, to a bomb, to a shield, and even to a huge path of lightening that strikes down from the sky that's controllable. Many powers are upgradeable too using experience points to purchase said upgrades. Points are earned by defeating enemies and doing many of the scattered side quests and main quests in the game.
The game is set up as a sandbox game so you can do anything you want in the vast three islands you explore. Almost everything is climbable and able to explore. The platforming elements are very well done and offer a nice alternative to the normal fights with those annoying gangs and spirits. You can continue the main story or just do side quests. You can go hunt for blast shards that increase the amount of electrical energy you can hold or even just go around town beating up random civilians. I know I enjoyed that. Side quests are extra missions that can unlock more missions, experience, unlock upgrades to a certain power for the evil/good set of side quests, and clear an area of enemies in that said part of the city once beaten. The game let you do anything and made you feel free but never overwhelmed.
One of the interesting things in the game is the morals system. Larger portions that affect the morality meter are handled by a small cut scene that breaks down the situation in the viewpoint of the good and bad way to do something. The powers you can have even differ by whether or not you're good or bad. I found being bad leading to better powers for killing and combat. Things like bio leech can restore all your health and energy with the cost of some evil points. Being evil was much more fun than being good in my opinion. It was even more rewarding in the game than being a hero. The city also changes depending on your morality. If your bad, the cities will be looking in terrible shape with dead bodies lying everywhere. People will hate you and even try to start fights with an all powerful electric man laughably by throwing small rocks. Good morality will lead to the three cities looking like Metropolis and Cole being loved by everyone. Cole's appearance also changes on whether or not he's infamous or a hero.
The character Cole is not the most well developed, Zeke is likable, Trish is really bland, and the characters you meet have some cool back stories to themselves. The people that inhabit Empire City itself are all very generic and personally I did not feel too connected to the city itself. I didn't feel the city was alive at all. Generic people say the same generic thing all day, walk in random places, and do nothing. The city feels mostly made up of generic buildings with the same details. The television is actually pretty cool to watch though. Even though people were dying and starving, it was not really pushed on you the amount of disparity. The people were so generic I did not care the least bit about them. Many just walk around like nothings happened.
The music was decent. It was good enough to match with the mood and emotions with the current place in the game. Sound effects were really cool and matched everything well from an exploding car to the electricity sounds. Everything sounded great and I have no issues with that part of the game.
The graphics were great. Environments were incredibly detailed and pixelated in only a very small amount of spots. Almost everything is looking great and well rendered. The animations are very smooth and look fantastic. Everything from Cole throwing a ball of lightening to enemies running away from your might looks smooth as can be. Physics work well in the game and there are many detailed places in the huge cities. There is the occasion glitch however that seemed to happen to me multiple times in the game. Most of the time it involved Cole's movement but sometimes Cole had fallen through the ground into blank nothingness and required me to restart the game. Most of the glitches that occurred weren't too bad though, just minor blemishes in the great game. I think though that the glitches occurred to me a little bit more than they should have. The game's cut scenes are done very well. They look like a graphic novel that are heavily stylized and look really cool.
The game won't clock in too much time if you only do the main missions and beat the main game only. There are many side missions to complete, 300 blast shards to find, 32 dead drops to collect (they are sound clips that add more back-story to the storyline and characters), and you can even start a new game as a different morality, playing the main quest over again in different paths. Though if you're not a total completionist who doesn't like collecting, the game won't last too long. Collecting is the bulk of content besides the missions that won't take too long to beat. You will have all the powers upgraded by the end of the game if not earlier and side missions actually do not last too long. If you do everything then the amount of time you spend will greatly increase. There is also a hard mode but I'm not a big fan of replaying games on different difficult settings. Sadly, after you collect everything, which is not too hard, there is nothing to keep you playing like multiplayer. In a nutshell, the game is great and has only some minor issues with glitches and some dislikes of the city, its amount of content and the people. It is a fun game that can potentially last a while and is worth the greatest hits price tag of $29.99.