Hatched from hardboiled detective stories and plopped into 1940's Los Angeles, LA Noire presents us with the life of opportunistic coward Cole Phelps as he effortlessly glides through the quagmire that is office politics. Also, sometimes we wander around and wait for the controller to vibrate. All the pieces are here for another Rockstar hit: paradigm-shifting graphics, mature story, open world. It adds some light detective work (pixel hunting) and an occasional gun battle, but this "game" misses the mark on so many occasions that it's difficult to enjoy.
Graphically, this generation of consoles has only slightly improved, except in rare cases. This is one of those cases. The technology behind the facial animation is absolutely astonishing - it's actually the first game where I've turned off subtitles and could get by with listening and facial recognition. Even the eyes, notoriously difficult to mo-cap, are well-realized and seem natural and fitting in this world. The open world animation and design has iteratively improved over previous Rockstar games as well (play this, then play GTA4). Why are the pretty ones always so shallow...
The dialogue and ideas presented LA Noire are very mature in nature, not only in the cases (drugs, serial murder, arson for profit) but in the backstory as well (adultery, cowardice, favoritism). While it has the beginnings of something interesting and engrossing, it falls so short of cohesiveness that it can actually make one laugh. Spinning newspapers reveal a backstory that brings nothing to the narrative. The big homicide desk mystery is rife with ham-fisted foreshadowing and an unsatisfying conclusion. Cole Phelps is also caught in an extramarital relationship that is tangential at best - aside from a wedding ring and a scene in the very beginning of the game, there's no other mention he's even married.
Cases open with casing the crime scene, then running interviews. Crime scene casing is an adventure-style pixel hunt that has failed to innovate since 1997. The controller vibrates and a tone sounds when you find something, be it a case-cracking clue or just a beer bottle. But it's okay, if you accidentally pick up a beer bottle, Cole will tell himself that it's circumstantial. This will happen a few hundred times. Following this comes the joy of interviewing witnesses and suspects. Each question and answer gives you the option to believe, question, or catch the person in a lie - which then requires you to pick out the evidence to prove this lie. Oftentimes, though (and especially in the late game), the evidence doesn't logically match up with the dialogue, and you can't see what direction the conversation will take when you select an option, leading to a lot of backtracking and re-interviewing. However, an interesting caveat to this is that the case will continue, so you may find yourself arresting a suspect that may not be the best fit, since the evidence (and a botched interview) point you to that conclusion.
These sections are broken up by pedantic action sequences that are actually skippable. Chasing a suspect too hard? Skip it! Can't follow a blonde? Skip it! Getting chased by a bulldozer in an improbably placed ditch? Skip that too! The open world bits are poorly implemented, as well. Drive if you want, but you can hit a button and let your partner drive. Occasionally a call will come through to take care of a side mission, which you can restart immediately should you fail.
Rockstar has garnered years worth of goodwill with excellent open-world games. It spent most of that goodwill getting us to buy LA Noire (and its piles of DLC).