Rob some people in fairly convincing fashion.
Premise: 10
This company wanted to make an in your face shooter that captured the feel and excitement of pulling off several different high profile felonies. Anyone who ever saw Heat, the Italian Job, or any other number of crime movies, and enjoys FPS games, would be excited just thinking about this game. It's a great idea.
Mission Variety: 8
While the actual variety of missions deserves a 10 hands down, the way in which they're presented really lowers that rating because you end up doing the same thing in most of the missions. Every mission involves either an escort, a drilling part, or explosives, but probably more than one, and possibly all of those things.
Mission Presentation: 6.5
This is a tough one, because both where the game shines, and where it falls flat on its face. There are quite a few very nice moments in this game, that are really fun to play through. Unfortunately, they lose their charm quickly with multiple repetitions, and the scripted events that are so cool present a much different side of the game than the actual action.
The development team definitely gets props for designing several of the missions to flow differently based on how well you complete early objectives. For instance, in the Diamond Heist mission, if you manage to hack all three terminals (very first objective) before being spotted, you can skip the two and a half minute-ish hacking period, and save yourself a lot of heartache early on. In the Slaughterhouse mission, if you shoot enough of the armed escorts' cars in the opening sequence, you can ensure there will be no armed guards waiting for you when you go to get the truck, and it will be positioned in a more convenient place in the warehouse.
However, every mission flows in an all-too similiar way. You're basically doing one of four things at all time:
-Waiting for a saw/drill/hack to complete
-Waiting for some random NPC that you never see to tell you what to do next.
-Fetching something to take from point A to B.
-Escorting someone.
Yeah, you can get a lot of gameplay out of those four things, and yes you're shooting cops the whole time you're doing all those things but... Sawing/drilling/hacking are identical save for the look of the equipment. You go hold the F key to attach whatever it is, then you wait for it to auto-complete its work, which always comes with at least 2-3 jams that require you to go hold F for a while to get it restarted. They clearly didn't want a player to be tied up with these tasks while the other three got to shoot things, but they could have at least added some sort of mini-game to make it more interesting, or something along those lines.
Then there's the continuity issues... In the first mission, the bank heist, you grab a drill and drill through a vault, then use thermite to eat your way through the vault floor so you can grab the cash. Ok, let's ignore the fact that it would be lethally hot to jump down through a floor that was just eaten away by thermite, assuming it didn't melt all the cash anyway... But after you do these two things, and it's time to escape, you're then tasked with blowing whole through the wall with C4. C4... Why did we grab a horrible, slow, drill that jams, and spend 3 minutes eating away with fire if we were carrying C4 the whole time?
Then on the Green Bridge mission, you break a prisoner out, run him down a bridge then put him in a chair so he can be sky-hooked out by what looks like a biplane. Following that you run the rest of the way down the bridge and slip on some scuba gear to swim away in. ... Why didn't we plant the gear near the van? And why did we have to go through the theatrics of a sky-hook of a construction site when we had scuba gear to escape with...
Simply said: the theatrics of the game itself often get in the way rather than aiding the experience. And when it comes right down to it, the theatrics are simply what's going on while you wait around and shoot cops.
It's also very important to mention that virtually every mission is filled with horribly uninformative and unhelpful instructions. They might as well be saying "alright, it's time to do some calculus", because they keep telling you it's time to do things that you have clue how to do, where to go to do them, or how to get there. Very annoying.
The hostage trading "system" was also seriously over-embellished by the developers, as it doesn't really exist. You can either forcibly tie up any civilian, or occasionally get a cop to surrender. Either way, they have such a small but occasionally annoyingly important impact on the game. Having hostages doesn't deter police action at all, and shooting civilians only adds a few seconds to respawn times. You also have to wait between "assault" waves in order to utilize their hostages, so it very clearly becomes a poorly implemented respawn mechanic.
Enemy Presentation: 4.5
It's not "bad", in fact they're very good shoots. Too good. And hyperly aware of where you are.
Just because something is hard, doesn't mean you have programmed it well. These developers definitely didn't understand that while making this game.
The first problem is the way in which enemies differ from one difficulty level to the next. Admittedly, correctly programming ramping difficulty levels is a hard task. On the other hand, it's crucial and in this particular case, was not done very well. While the special enemies are annoying enough, and we'll get to them more in a second, every cop in the game turns in a commando-turned-marksman-turned-average-street-cop on overkill. Hard is fine, but the way it's presented is pretty amateur in this game. First of all, enemies are usually confident enough to stand prone in the middle of the room, and not for bad reason from their perspective. First of all, there's a RIDICULOUS amount of them. I'd rather have less, smarter, enemies than literally a metropolitan police force all in the same room at the same time. Not that it isn't fun, but you're thinking the whole time "there's way too many cops in here to be realistic".
And speaking of missing the boat on realism, enemies always know where you are, and are impeccable at shooting you the moment a shot is available. It's annoying and it makes you feel inept because the moment you step out to do anything, you're immediately getting peppered from multiple locations.
Ok now the special enemies... Man I thought the Special Infected in L4D were bad... No no... these guys take the cake hands down.
There are three types (not counting snipers):
-Bulldozers: Yes, sort of the "tank" of the game. These guys run around in what looks like a bomb disposal uniform (wtf?); taking way too much damage (which, btw, can only be dealt to their face), and dealing way too much. On Overkill, than can drop your team in just a couple seconds if you let them.
-Cloakers: Possibly the worst of the three. These guys aren't much worse than a regular enemy at medium or long range, but up close they have an auto-incapacitate attack that they use to quickly end the fight. Thankfully they don't quite have the jump range of a Hunter or Jockey, but if they catch you off guard, they will take advantage of that quickly. They also take too much damage to down, especially considering they're wearing light armor.
-Tasers: These guys are an exercise in bad programming. They're not too intelligent and don't pose much threat at medium range. However, you are pretty much completely worthless while being tasered, and unless you or someone else kills them, they'll taser you unconscious. One of their big problems is that they exploit some of the hit detection issues I'll discuss in a minute, often making it hard for even your un-tasered enemies to discover exactly where you're being tasered from. Secondly, they're probably the toughest enemy in the game, and for seemingly no particular reason. Bullet for bullet, I'd wager they have even higher life than the Bulldozers, and more importantly, come a lot more frequently and without an announcement from your operater.
Unfortunately, even normal enemies have access to some mechanics that are less "fun" and more "downright annoying". The biggest thing is definitely smokebombs. Pretty much any cop higher than the rent-a-cops and the street "blues" have access to these, and toss them. A lot. They effectively hide what's going on in them, and beyond them and most importantly, enemies can magically detect you through them. Woohoo.
Guns and RPG elements: 6
This was definitely overstated by the developers. The "RPG" mechanics are no more RPG-ish than the unlocks system of Battlefield 3, etc., and are certainly handled more poorly. You gain cash $ for every objective completed in a mission, whether you finish it or not, and a large bonus for completing it, depending on how well you did, and the difficulty level.
However, you can't even select you class from the available 3 (Assault, sharpshooter, support) until you're in a game, and even then it's so counter-intuitive it's silly. Is it in the menu? No, you have hold the tab key (which is universally the objective screen, and serves that purpose here too...), and then press 1, 2 or 3. Weird... Stranger still, the classes have no immediate effect on the game. They don't change your health, ammo capacity, speed, nothing. In fact they never change any of that. Being in a specific class only determines what unlock tree you're working on. They don't even restrict guns unlocked from other trees while you're playing in a specific class. Weird.
Guns... Guns are pretty hit and miss in this game. I'd say they're solidly average over all. A lot of the iron sights are more "good try" than of actual use. They've got some classic weapons but are missing even more. I couldn't believe a game involving crime didn't have an AK-47 in it. It would have been better to include that and some other iconic Assault Rifles rather than a sawn-off and regular shot gun... Weapons earn upgrades but are set, and have absolutely no customization whatsoever, cosmetic or otherwise. There's also no real good sniper weapon, even for the Sharpshooter tree, and no heavy weapons or explosives-type weapons to mention. Kind of a sad scope of armaments.
Characters are also not customizable, and you feel no connection with their non-existent personalities, regardless of who you're playing as or with.
The radio chatter in the game is actually pretty decent, but reveals nothing about the four anti-heroes, nor does it try.
You do have a decent amount of customization as far as load out, but that's hampered by the pigeon-holing of usefulness concerning certain weapons and skills. Some are clearly more useful than others, like the difference between a passive resistance to all damage vs extra cable ties to take hostages with. Being able to use weapons unlocked from any tree simultaneously is nice, but makes you feel the need to fill out all three trees, making your progress in whatever tree you picked first feel less definitive, and more like a grind.
Graphics & Environment: 8.5
This is one area that I was actually quite impressed with, especially considering the price tag. They're not breathtaking, but considering the game cost $20, you'd be a fool to expect them to be. Every mission is very different looking and feeling than the others, and the artists did a nice job to aid that.
You are definitely confined to the relevant parts of the map, but you never really feel that way. Most likely because they successfully create a since of urgency, so exploration is rather pointless and costly most of the time.
In my humble opinion, while these graphics are noticeably worse than any big ticket games coming out this year, they stand out as a strong point in this game's arsenal.
Bugs and other Issues
Hit detection Hit detection Hit detection Hit detection Hit detection... And lack thereof.
Enemies are unabashed and certainly not afraid to shoot you through solid objects. Unfortunately you can't return the favor.
Cars are the worse, and there are a lot of street scenes in this game. You feel safe, or would like to, ducking behind a car, but those bullets just keep pouring into you, regardless of the fact that you're clearly concealed.
Glass is poorly done, and doesn't allow you to shoot _anything_ on the other side of it until it's broken.
There is a big lack of functionality in the UI, especially in game. For instance, there is no way to return to the lobby while in multiplayer. If a mission goes badly and you'd like to retry it, you're stuck with the options of waiting for death, or having every leave and reforming the game. That's a pretty amateur mistake to make it into release.
The AI of your team-mates while playing with bots is a joke. They do no help with any objectives, and are often completely clueless about how to navigate certain areas. There are often times when they'll wait around in a room forever because they have no pathing programming to help them into the next area. Being from the same "perfect aim and reaction time" school as the cop AI, they are decent in a gun fight, but will often sit there and let your bleedout timer expire rather than trying to help you up. They also have a bad habit of running into the next room and getting incapacitated themselves by the wall of blue they just ran into.
Overall the game client is stable and seldom crashes, and there aren't a lot of graphical errors to mention, both of which are big positives for the development team.
Verdict: 7
It's a $20 game, and you get what you pay for in every sense of the word.
Is it worth $20? Yes, and it will be a steal when it goes on sale at a later date. It is fun at times, but considering how shallow the progression is, and how redundant the mission mechanics are, the prospect of grinding out the random achievements, or even completing all missions on OVERKILL really loses its appeal quickly.
With some functionality and hit detection problems fixed by patches, this game will move closer to an 8/10, but it's not going to rock your world ever. Worth playing, though.