Abomination

The Good
What can I say? This game is certainly a mixed bag. For one thing, there's a lot of action that really doesn't ever let up. You certainly become attached to your characters as the game progresses. The game tries its best to be atmospheric (although I think turn based would be creepier) and some of the monsters are downright chilling. You can get into tight spots that are actually pressing. And...what else? Perhaps good fanfic fodder.

The Bad
Oh god, where to START? The overall game looks like it was made on a weekend to fill in time between blockbuster games. The balancing is AWFUL. At any given time there is one weapon to use. The M60E3, the Minigun, when you have these, that should reasonably be all that you're using. There is no balance whatsoever. Not to mention the 'superpowered' Nemesis Project soldiers are positively useless. Detonate can lay explosives? Big deal, its faster just to shoot the monsters. Pyro can zap bad guys with her mind? Hah, it only effects one enemy, and the ones that rely on quality rather than quantity won't be killed by it anyway. About the only useful one is the woman that can soak up a lot of damage. The 'pathetic' normal soldiers are the real heroes, that ones that have skills with particular weapons types. Some of the enemies attack hand to hand, and they move SO SO BLOODY SLOW they'll only hit you if you're seriously effin around. Not to mention the AI - Absolute Idiocy. The computer basically controls its units as such. 1. Close to firing range. 2. Fire. 3. Repeat as necessary. I am not joking. And some of the weapons, well, I have no idea why they were even included, they're so useless. Did I mention the poor balance?

The Bottom Line
I picked this game up for like five bucks. For such a price, I would actually recommend that you do to. For all my ragging on it, the game does have its redeeming features.

The Good
In plot, theme, and look, it could have been a great answer to XCOM, especially to XCOM: Apocalypse. The look and feel of the art was great. Some of the mission ideas were nifty - including ordering supplies from higher authority resulting in a mission to occupy the drop zone and pick up the package.

The Bad
Too many of the features were implemented poorly. They wanted to have "unexpected" adventures when your team ran into trouble on the way to a planned mission - but they only had one plot and one map, which you got really sick of playing really fast. Huge quantities of stupid enemies and a high play speed are a dreadful substitute for tactical depth. The unique characters' powers are mostly useless. Too many things are not explained in the manual, so you can find that you've painted yourself into a corner after 20-30 hours of play and have to start over. Weapons come in only two kinds: boring/wimpy and powerful; the only balance to the powerful weapons is the undocumented fact that higher HQ will run out of ammo for them. The soundtrack tried to be edgy and heavy-metal but just came out as nerve-grating noise.

The Bottom Line
A few good ideas I wish had been realized by somebody competent, but otherwise a waste of time and disk space.

The Good
Good graphics and sound effects, great music and cutscenes. It's got the most engaging gameplay which forced me to play right from the beginning to the end virtually non-stopped (That means three days without sleep!) A great variety of interesting weapons and special effects. Good random-map generator which never let one tired of the AI-placed tiles. good soldier AI and path-finding algorithm, decent enemy AI. Great monster and level design, especially those extremely long and fun Portal Missions. Engaging War chapter give a interesting change of pace. The isometric-viewed tactical battles are really fun! And the RPG-like experience points system is very well done, give one a lot of freedom to customize your agents' abilities...

The Bad
A lot of bugs when first released (though the first patch has already out to fix quite a number of them...) and the over-head strategy map is not very interesting. The tactical part is not very deep (but this can be a good thing ;) and the War chapter can be a bit too difficulty (and before the patch, it's insanely difficult, but this again can be a good thing for some people) The eight bio-mechanically enhanced agents are not exactly balanced, some got very useful special skills while others are not that good. The overall gameplay time is not very long though there are certain replay values...

The Bottom Line
a brilliant computer real-time strategy/action game with certain interesting RPG elements and good overall feel. And it got great fun factors to hook almost all-kinds of gamers. However, its gameplay is hindered by quite a few bugs (most fixed in the first patch) and some small flaws. Generally it's a game everyone should buy and will get a lot of FUN out of. It's good for a wide range of gamers, and it can be described best as a mix of X-COM and Syndicate Wars, with the gameplay a bit more inclined to Syndicate. However, it also got a lot of its own innovations to distinguish itself out of the others and makes for a great FUN game!