Awesome game. Best Rainbow Six game so far.
Story:
The story is not too deep, but works well enough to keep you going along and wanting to know what will happen next. The characters are interesting, a little stereotypical, but nonetheless manage to create a feeling of guilt if one of your mates is downed. Basically terrorists attack Las Vegas (surprise!) and you and your crack team are deployed to stop them. There are portions of the game taking place in other places like a mexican border town, the streets of Las Vegas, but mostly you are underway in casinos. The finale is set somewhere different, but I won't spoil anything at this point.
Atmosphere:
The atmosphere is great, with your teammates acknowledging your orders, terrorists screaming and talking to each other, background sounds in the casinos and surroundings. Your orders are carried out swiftly and with an excellent teammate AI that lets your squads members move to cover, fire at terrorists and give status reports on their own you really feel like part of an elite crack team. The terrorists are also far more than cannon fodder, they also move to cover, flank you, open doors, climb ladders to elevated positions, suppress fire and also throw grenades to kill you (frags) or blind you (flashbang).
The game is not a hardcore tactical simulation as the first Rainbow Six parts were, but is a very healthy mix of tactical game and action shooter. Sometimes the game feels a lot like an action movie, but a very good one at that. Scripted sequences let ferocious firefights erupt around you and force you to re-develop your tactics on the go, rather than simply planning out the strategy at the beginning and following thorugh to the end. This adds a lot of atmosphere as you really feel like being pitched into the mayhem and chaos of a terrorist attack without the possibility to plan ahead and be prepared for each and every opposing threat. This has to be one of the greatest bonuses - that you never really know what will happen once you have scanned a room and targeted "tangos" (enemies in RB6 slang)and entered - half a dozen enemies could rappel from the ceiling, come crashing through a door or start chucking grenades at you.
This might sound chaotic or unfair, however it is simply realistic and very believable - and quite simply put - challenging.
In my opinion this is something some people might not like, not being able to plan ahead for everything, however I myself enjoyed this greatly as it forces you to rethink and reassess the situation every few minutes.
Checkpoint saves are scattered well spaced and give you a fair chance of completing even the hardest tasks easily.
Graphics:
The graphics are excellent using the newest unreal engine, perfectly displaying a realistic urban battlefield. Bullet holes, particle effects, realistic object physics, realistic smole effects, lens flares, etc all add to the superb experience this game is.
Sound:
As mentioned above, the comm chatter, gun sounds, casino noises and everything in this game sounds awesome. Your comrades sound a little to gung-ho, but mostly keep it to professional short informations and acknowledgements. The terrorists scream taunts, talk like your typical evil guy, but never really drifting off into stupidity. Overall the sound is very good and you will enjoy listening in on terrorists via snake cam and the mighty sound of machine guns bellowing.
Special:
What I would like to mention is the excellent control scheme, that gives you full control, but is still easily manageable with a few buttons.
Your main button for interactions will be the space bar, context sensitively reacting to different objects (door - open, snake cam, open and clear options, cover - team moves to cover, ...) and you will be amazed at how easy it will be to effectively direct your team through the game.
The second noteworthy thing about the controls is that when pressing and holding the right mouse button you will clinch to a wall and use it as cover which will be invaluable for your survival.
Overall:
After a rather lengthy review I will be brief on the sum up. If you like tactical action games and elite team genre games you will get nothing better than this. The missions are various, are interwoven seamlessly and keep you on your toes all the time.
You will be challenged, even if you are an experienced gamer and this will mean great satisfaction when having cleaned out a room or completed a mission on time. This satisfaction is enlarged even more if you enter a room, take out the preassigned targets and thinking of moving on, suddenly spot enemies rappeling down from the ceiling, call back your team, cover their retreat, get into a better firing position and repel the enemy attack, and move on to the next section of the area. Overall a great and challenging game, which leaves me nothing more to add, but: "Enter and clear!"