An amazing survival-shooter with only minor flaws.
Set some years after a global thermonuclear war, you play Artyom, whose only memories of the surface world are postcards plastered over the wall of his tiny room. He lives, like the other survivors of the war, in the Moscow metro system, which shields them from the lethal levels of radiation on the surface. Your Metro station, however, is in danger of destruction at the hands of the mutants who are massing to attack. Since there is no form of communication with the other Metro stations, you are sent to report this to the "Council"- the only form of government in the city which seeks to unite as many stations as possible. Along the way, you'll battle mutants, visit other beseiged stations, and even fight your way through a battle between Reds and neo-Nazis.
The first time you step out of your home Metro and onto the surface is a beautiful and shocking moment. The once-beautiful city of Moscow is a snowy, desolate wasteland, and famous landmarks such as St. Basil's Cathedral are little more than rubble in the grey distance. However, there is little time to admire the artwork, as each visit to the surface is a constant fight for survival. Even when you're not actively engaging the "Dark Ones" or the Fascist Army, you're constantly checking your watch to see the amount of air left in your gas mask's air filter. Some of the game's most claustrophobic and realistic effects are achieved when wearing the gas mask; loudly gasping for air when you've been running, hearing your breath become shallow and having your vision obscured by condensation as your air filter runs out, and so on.
Metro 2033 would accurately be classified as a stealth-survival horror. Although the game is not truly scary per se, it is very creepy. One sequence that stands out is when you're traversing an abandoned tunnel with an NPC. You can crouch next to a pipe to hear your pursuers closing in on you; he tells you that the tunnel is filled with spirits who are condemned to relive their deaths for eternity; trains whistle loudly, despite the fact they haven't worked in decades; and you can hear the fear in his voice as he recites a prayer to ward off the defenders he abandoned in the very same tunnel years prior.
In terms of the shooting and stealth, these are the weakest aspects of the game. While the shooting elements are not boring at all, the weapons seem ineffective and lack the joy of firing them like other shooters. While this could be explained by the fact that most weapons available in-game have been haphazardly manufactured underground and use sub-standard ammunition, this doesn't mitigate the fact that at times, it's just not FUN to shoot a nosalis in the fact with a sawed-off shotgun, when it should be. Although throughout the game you can pick up pre-war ammo that does exponentially more damage, this also acts as currency which can be used to upgrade weapons, buy air filters, med packs, grenades, etc. One complaint I can state here: the reload button and the button for changing ammo types are mapped to the right bumper, and are only differentiated between a tap (reload) and and brief hold (swap ammo types). There have been several times where, in the heat of battle, I accidentially swapped ammo types, and expended my entire stock of pre-war ammo.
My primary complaint against the game is the stealth system. Although it is very tense to attempt to sneak around an enemy base, I've found it to be far too time-consuming and nearly impossible in some ways. There seem to be pretty linear paths where you need to sneak, and it's laid out pretty obviously what lamps you have to turn off and which areas you have to hide in. This means little when your opponents have night vision goggles, can hear any sound you make, and can see you even when you're crouching behind six feet of sandbags. On one occasion, I was standing at the top of a stairwell with several soldiers running from my right to left. When I had doused a lamp and was plunged in complete darkness, waiting for the soldiers to run by, another came behind me on the staircase. Even when I found a way to silently kill him with a knife, the soldiers found me every time. It's like the developers want you to shoot your way through everything. It's more rewarding in that regard, as well, because the largest ammo storage locations are in well-lit, well-guarded areas that can usually only be accessed when everyone around you is dead.
These complaints aside, Metro 2033 is one of the best games to come out on the Xbox 360 in years, and should not be missed by anyone who appreciates a game with intense action, an engrossing story, and engaging atmosphere.