'll make it short for those with little time: do not buy this game. please don't. there are so much better games out there for the money. or even for free.
now for the details: this game is just bad. i know it's a budget production, but still. not having a lot of money on your hands can still make for a nice game, and this is certainly not how it's done. the most outstanding features of this game (and not in a good way!) are:
1) the a.i. is just terrible. the bad guys just come running at you or stand around in the open for you to shoot at, and the good guys (you're moving as a team of 3 for all of the game) like to stand in your way, blocking your sight and/or your movement. i died several times because i could not shoot at the baddies because my "mates" were in the way. i could still be hit, though. also i had to reload the last checkpoint quite often because one of my mates decided to block a doorway and not move at all ever again.
2) the level design is so boring, it makes you fall asleep. there is always just one single route to go, and most of the time, you don't even have to look for it because your mates are leading. you basically just follow them, shoot down all the bad guys along the way and wait for the level exit. sometimes you have to hit a switch, but they are always located conveniently right next to the door.
also, the way doors are opened is completely random. most of them you open yourself by clicking them, some you open by a switch (i.e. clicking something else), some are opened by your mates and for some, you are required to "stack up" (i.e. stand on a designated spot) and wait for your mates to throw a flashbang, which triggers a bullet-time sequence during which you have to shoot a maximum of 3 enemies standing around in the room. nice minigame. not. there is no recognizable logic behind which doors you can just walk through and which ones have to be flashbanged.
that really sums up 90% of the gameplay - follow your mates, open doors, shoot stupid baddies. repeat. there isn't even a "man that machine gun" scene in this game.
3) the game is incredibly short. there are just three scenarios: a prison riot, a bank break-in, and a raid on an abandoned base in greenland. each scenario is split up into several levels and it takes you a maximum of 15 minutes per level. i completed the game in, i dunno, 3 hours max.
4) the story. it goes like this: sas hunts bad mercenary and his rich accomplice. they follow them for some time, then kill them. the end.
that's it. i mean, there's not even a bossfight or something. when you're done shooting random stupid henchmen in the last scenario, you enter a room with another random stupid henchman who happens to be one of the two super baddies. i didn't even know it was him before i killed him, because he was so far away and it only took me two shots. cue cutscene, baddie one dies. cue another cutscene, second baddie dies. just like that. when i realized i'd just beaten the game, i couldn't help but laugh. it felt like i'd just finished the tutorial or something.
the only thing that's not a complete failure is the voice acting. one star for that because i like the british accent and the speakers aren't that bad. just in the cut scenes though - the in-game voices keep saying stuff like "check the stairs" and "engaging the enemy" over and over again, which gets on your nerves pretty soon.
5) really weak graphics, animations, visual effects and sound effects. it looks, sounds and feels like something from the late nineties. speaking of sound: for some reason, someone decided it'd be a good idea to play the sound of feet walking over snow, and nothing else, throughout the entire credits. what the hell?!
so, to sum it up: bad ai. bad level design. weak story. incredibly short. bad graphics. bad everything else. good job, city interactive!
