Underrated, Unappreciated.
User Rating: 9 | Shadowrun X360
Shadowrun for the Xbox 360/PC gets a lot of hate. Everyone claims it's due to FASA not using the Shadowrun license to it's fullest. While, that may or may not be true, if you read through a lot of reviews, it's seen that this game gets a lot of hate due to two things: graphics and lack of single player. While those things do hurt this game, those are just two minor things that this great game lacks. This game has a long learning curve, which, along with lack of single player, and mediocre graphics is what turned people and reviewers off this game. If you can get past the learning curve that this game brings with it, you will see that this is game has one of the deepest gameplay mechanics behind it that players haven't seen in some time. It's often described as a "World of Warcraft Counter Strike", and in all essence, that's what it is. Players can choose from four races: Human, Elf, Troll, and Dwarf. Most of the people in public matches will use Human and Elf, that is simply because of their health and moving speed. While that's important in a shooter (killing more than dying), using something like the Troll and the Dwarf is what really makes this game interesting. The Dwarf and Troll add gameplay elements that makes each game that more exciting because of their special abilities and specialities. What's amazing about the gameplay is exactly that counter strike style. Every round you need to decide what to buy, what to save up for, or how much money you should give to your teammates. Especially in early game, what you buy can determine the outcome of the late game and the winner. Also, while this may sound impossible and ridiculous, every weapon, every spell, and every race has it's counter. Just that show how much time was truly spent on balancing this game, and it also shows how enjoyable a game can be where everything is on balance. The weapons that are offered in this game are well balanced, in such, average players will get kills and a better player will get more kills. That is, except the SMG. Yes, the graphics are mediocre, which is a big surprise since games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 have come out, although they had more funding behind them. Even then, the graphics don't take away anything from the great gameplay of this game. It's a shame that the game doesn't have some sort of a single player, although you could argue that if it did, it wouldn't be played much and perhaps lesser the gameplay quality of the game overall. A cool feature that Micro$oft has experimented with is cross platform play (PC -> Xbox360), which works very well, but adding achievements that are tied in with cross platform play is a very questionable choice. Shadowrun is a very good game and if you invest quite a bit of time in it, it will pay off to you, but if you don't, it will be just another mediocre shooter that has been released on the xbox. 
