Gamespot's cynical review sucked alot more than the actual game. Monster Madness is a good throwback to a classic era.
Graphics: The screen shots speak for themselves. A fun, dark and colorful comic book-styled environment.
Game play: Your character moves with an old school, arcade-like stride that is both totally unrealistic (something hard to swallow for many modern gamers) and intentional. Combat is what you expect, 30% technique, 70% button-mashing. Many complain about the checkpoint spacing and lack of progress saving. Well, this game hearkens back to a time when men were men and saving really wasn't feasible in most cases. So having unlocked levels and checkpoints at all in this case is actually forgiving, if you ask me. Man up, people, and quit whining.
Controls: The controls are probably the most criticized aspect of this game, being that the left stick is used to move and the right is used to turn, a la first person shooters. As a top down hack n' slash/shooter, this makes little sense until you're being chased by a pack of explosive zombies and you're shooting them while running in the opposite direction to avoided getting blown up. Then it makes perfect sense. The same goes for dashing, which is performed by simply pressing the left stick. The Gamespot reviewer thought this was weird; why? You're already heading in a direction using the left stick, just push it in to dash away from danger. Too easy.
All in all, this game is mindless pick-up-and-play fun. Don't listen to the bashers who don't give the game enough credit. Here's hoping a sequel could iron out the faults and make this game fully deliver on its promises.