I was totally underwhelmed.
I never played the original Perfect Dark and am not familiar with the story. Being unfamiliar with the plotline, PDZ was completely incapable of pulling me into it. Who are all the main characters and villains? What are their motivations, and what are they fighting for? After playing through the entire campaign, all I could really respond with is, "Who cares?" I certainly don't, and the game's inability to make me care is indicative of its failure.
Level design was poor and often confusing, which in turn leads to the player getting lost - very frustrating. It's as if the developers admit to the confusing nature of many of the levels by adding arrows that appear on the floor which point you in the correct direction. If the levels were designed better these arrows would not be necessary. And at times the arrows do more harm than good as they point you in the wrong direction which more often than not can lead to your death or the failure of a bonus objective.
Movement seemed entirely too slow to me often times at well. For a seemingly fit woman Joanna Dark "runs" through most of the game as if she is in high heels. There are times you don't notice this (movement through short corridors) but at instances where you are moving through open areas making any progress seems to take forever.
Equally, weapons movement and aiming also often takes on a very sluggish feel. Tweaking the controls didn't seem to help me. I'm right at home with the controls of other FPS games (most notably Halo 2) but PDZ always felt a big twitchy.
The game's AI is disappointing. Pinned down by an enemy using a heavy turret? Don't worry! Just keep under cover long enough and he will forget about you, going on to look at the purdy graphics elswhere. Pop up and headshot him. This is the kind of thing you would expect of a game years ago, but this is supposed to be the Next Gen. Isn't AI supposed to be better?
The game can still be difficult on its default difficulty. What it lacks in enemy AI it makes up for with hordes of enemies. However, the AI of your partner can be very very frustrating at times. Ever played a game where your AI partner keeps getting killed or getting you killed from extreme stupidity? This is another one. One mission on the campaign in particular is an EXTREME pain. You pilot a hover craft and your partner mans the gun. If only he could pick up a target quickly and shoot them accurately, but no. He chooses targets poorly, begins to shoot at them slowly, and misses. A lot. And thus you are killed, back to checkpoint, to try again. And again. And again. If the game allowed you to man the gun it wouldn't be so bad, but it doesn't.
The sound was the game's only strong point. Weapons fires as well as other various effects all felt very real. Graphically I felt the game was OK, but nothing to write home about. Certainly not anything to make up for the lackluster gameplay.
If you are bored and a fan of FPS, then you might give PDZ a weekend rental. It's much more fun playing the campaign with a friend. But please, don't waste your money on it. There's a good reason why it has been all but forgotten more than six months after its release. I don't know what kind of crack the Gamespot editors were smoking when they reviewed this game, but I want some.