I found the game incredibly fun. Also, don't base your decisions entirely off of game reviews. The game is REALLY fun (at least on PC, I have no clue if it sucks on console), and I only have a few qualms about it. Basically, you'll probably end up "dying" quite a few times... but that's ok, because as long as you didn't "die" within the last minute, you can come back to life, much like in Gears of War (where you can encourage Dom to keep fighting), but here, it works both ways (an ally comes up and injects some awesome adrenaline in your system). In fact, this game does feel like it stole a few ideas from Gears of War. Kane (the person you play) is off to the left of the camera instead of dead center like most games, you have no health meter and judge your health off of how red the screen is (and how tilted the camera is, which is a neat effect, I must say), the fact that you recover quickly from your bullet-catching, and, once again, you can revive 'dead' teammates.
Anyway, back to the dying. There are a few spots in the game that are pretty tricky and require several tries to get it right (you can also fail missions and, if you either get blown to bits or OD on adrenaline (by dying twice in about a two-minute time frame), you can die. For real, this time.), but what game DOESN'T have this? However, the only three levels I've seen so far (which sadly is just about once every three chapters) that have this irritating habit are: The nightclub (you have to defend your buddy from guards, since he is carrying a load and can't defend himself. The trick is to make him stay put until you clear the area.), the behemoth truck (yeah, that part was VASTLY annoying... but hey, the shovel-based murder before was REALLY cool, at least in my book.
), and, well, where I'm stuck now. I just got to... that place in the middle of the war. Also... that was kind of a weird plot twist that didn't make too much sense, at least not yet (if you couldn't already tell by "I'm stuck here", well, I'm stuck there and haven't finished the game).
Anyway, so far, co-op (on PC) sucks, since you have to have two 360 controllers in order to play it (which is amusing, since they don't let you use a 360 controller in single player mode). I haven't gotten the chance to play it since I don't have a second controller attached to my computer, let alone in my posession. Also, multiplayer seems a bit shallow, since A) the game is Live-based and therefore, you can only play against other PC-ers that don't want to upgrade to Gold (hey, why would you? PC gets free online play, whereas 360 doesn't! HAH!), and B) there's only one game mode. Sure, the game mode seems pretty fun, but when you burn out on that, you can't just set the next round to be a deathmatch. Also, I haven't played multiplayer, but I get the feeling that there won't be too many levels... and also, since the purpose of the game mode is to participate in a heist with everyone else playing (you can turn on each other though... it gets a little complicated on how you win), you and I can both guess that the game will get a little repetitive in multiplayer (MULTIPLAYER = REPETITIVE?? WTF?).
Finally... there are slight control issues. SLIGHT control issues. I miss Gears, where you could hit the spacebar to hit cover (oh yeah, you sprint with the spacebar in Kane and Lynch, too. Which... is how you 'sprint' in Gears.), since here, you have to walk up to cover and kind of stare at it while you hit some complicated key combination to HOPE you snap to the cover and don't slash your buddy open with the melee button instead.
But... all this aside.
The game is pretty good fun.
If you seriously trust the reviews, go and rent the game. Or borrow it. Who cares? It's a really fun game. It has a nice amount of story, but it doesn't force it out on you. The most story you get if you aren't paying attention is "I don't like these assholes. They are assholes. They did bad things, right in front of me, too. Let's kill them." The game has stunning graphics, decent gameplay, and stellar story. It feels like watching a heist-gone-wrong movie (since that's basically what the game is), but you get to blow things up your own goddamn way.
