The Saboteur by all means is not a bad game at all, but there are enough flaws to cut it short of being a great game.
The actual gameplay starts out rather slowly as some of the first missions are simply driving from point A to point B. It's a good 2 hours until you really feel free due to the lengthy prologue that takes you back 3 months to the events that occurred at, and after the Grand Prix Race Sean should have won. Again the story doesn't actually follow WWII so much. It's basically about getting payback to this Dierker guy for events I will not spoil. But once the open world of Paris is available to explore, there's actually quite a lot to do. Focusing on the story first is probably the best idea, as many of the missions feel chained together to a point where it feels like it is making you do several missions in a row.
Unsurprisingly, many of the missions focus on killing Nazis or destroying some of their important military resources. Stealth can be used to sneak around Nazis, or even to use their uniform as a disguise. The shooting mechanics are about what you'd expect from a third person shooter. It's really easy to annihilate a lot of Nazis in a short amount of time thanks to how easy the game generally is. Sean sure can take a beating and lots of bullets. He sure heals amazingly fast as well. Of course there's no point in complaining about this when getting attacked by a huge number of Nazis when there is a lack of good cover around. The auto reloading seems unneeded at times. The driving mechanics aren't so bad either, but the car physics are laughable at best. Cars won't really look noticeably damaged until a hood flies off, or one of the lights bust. Driving old style cars can get kind of boring, but there are a handful of racing cars that can be unlocked, and driving them can bring out a true sensation of speed.
One gameplay mechanism that I can almost consider "truly terrible" would be the climbing. While it can be easy to navigate up some buildings, it's just not very fun. And unfortunately there's a lot of climbing involved throughout the game. At times Sean just won't jump at certain spots, and climbing down is almost as bad as climbing up! Due to some poor building designing it is possible to get stuck in between certain objects, or fall to your death due to terribly laid out paths to the top of a building or structure. At least this is one of the only major annoyances of this game. Another could possibly be the long and unnecessary amounts of time spent trying to escape the Nazis. The Saboteur borrows from Grand Theft Auto, with the Nazis being cops, and instead of "wanted" levels, there are "alarm" levels. And escaping them is very similar to GTA IV because you have to get out of the "red danger zone" to get the Nazis off your arse. Triggering the alarm on accident can be quite a nuisance, as really fast Nazi bikes can tail you really well, even when going super fast, and not to mention the randomly spawning vehicles.
After completing just the main story, much of Paris will still be in black and white, which represents Nazi control. Completing side missions returns color the most of the map. In additions there are over 1300 "freeplay targets", which are anything from Nazi sniper nest to monumental postcards. Doing these nets additional contraband, which is used as currency. It is really fun to blow up some of these targets for a while, but it does drag on and get repetitive if you decide to go after all of the targets. It does add more time to the game, but that is a LOT of targets. Another great thing I almost forgot to mention are the perks. There are bronze, silver, and gold perks for certain categories such as sniping, sabotage, and racing. Each are earned by doing specific task, and the perks are actually quite rewarding. The open world of Paris and the areas outside of it look surprisingly well, with the exception of viewing areas from a long distance. The sounds such as the explosions are well done too. The music also fits the setting.
And in conclusion, The Saboteur isn't a bad game at all. But some of the flaws like climbing buildings, ridiculous/repetitive missions, various glitches, occasional freezing, and at times poor controls keep this one from being a truly great game. However thanks to the open world and crazy over the top action, it's worth playing. Finishing every mission, and completing just about every freeplay target can make this game easily last over 30 hours. So go on, get out there and kill some Nazis!
Summary:
Graphics: 8.5/10
Sound: 8.5/10
Controls: 7/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Value: 8.7/10
Overall score: 7.7/10