I was crazy psyched for this game since I heard about it in the weeks preceding E3, but unfortunately feel pretty let down. The game has gotten better the more I played but some of the puzzles are much easier than I initially thought. For instance, I though I needed to do one of those wall climb 180 degree turn then jump moves followed by a wall run then perpendicular jump to get somewhere when in reality I just didn't see a ladder around the corner. Kinda frustrating when you are waiting for a game to challenge you with interesting platforming puzzles when it really just wants you to look for the crate or ladder or plank. Once you get into the game it is pretty fun, but it is not living up to my expectations. It's not because I'm too entrenched in having a 3rd person camera for a platforming game, since I love the perspective. The only issue with the first person view is looking around when hanging on railings. I feel like it is just a mediocre Prince of Persia clone without a rewind button mixed with a surprisingly well down first person view that reminds the player a lot of Half Life 2. The level's are pretty redundant with many a leap of faith, and the game sometimes asks you to be extremely exact even when crossing large distances. It seems pretty finicky in determining how close you are to an air duct along the side of a building, or if your hands can reach that ledge.

Combat is interesting, but once again you need to get used to it before it actually flows well. I generally resort to sliding kick, fast punch for almost everything. Once in a while I'll mix it up with a disarm but most of the time it is just easier to be the crap out of them. It is nice to have a game where you are not super soldier with ridiculous armor, but regenerating health is here in a big way. They could have easily stashed health packs in the insane amount of unpopulated construction sites through out the game, but a health bar would have diminished from the very nicely done lack of HUD. Honestly, I would have preferred the health bar.

Also, why are there no people anywhere in this city? Yea, there are 'blues' all over the place, the occasional other runner that you are chasing, and people on the ground floors of subway stations, but what about in buildings. It feels like the city is dead. With every office building, construction site, warehouse and subway empty there just seems to be no life. Even in a dystopian universe people need to be working. Definitely in the TV station where people need to control the propaganda. The only possible excuse is that they would get in the way of the platforming or break the flow of the game, but I think it would be fine to have them run out of the room when you enter or if you had to knock out some innocent bystanders along the way.  The level design allows for slow areas and fast areas, so adding some people wouldn't break it up that much anyway.

There is also a story in the game but you will soon find it to be pretty boring. It is essentially Enemy of the State set in Orwell's 1984, but without the heart of anti-communism or Gene Hackman's obvious kick-assery. Indeed, for a game set in a dystopian near future it is pretty skimpy on taking a stand on the issues, aside from some brief mentions here and there. And for a game with such great graphics the cutscenes are eye-gaugingly ugly. Seriously, why couldn't they just make them with in game graphics?  Maybe the developers were sitting around one day watching TV, saw five Esurance commercials in a row and proudly proclaimed, "Let rip of this horrible animation style and put it in a beautifully rendered 3D game!" Finally, the sound is pretty mixed. While the music is great, rising and falling with the action, the voices are bad. The acting is alright, but you never feel really engaged in what the characters are saying. Also, unless you turn the music volume down you should expect to use subtitles since the guy jabbering in your ear is badly muffled.

Despite this long list of gripes, the game is not that bad. I really enjoy the puzzle platforming sections, and when you are moving fast it is really visceral gameplay.  This is not a game I will be replaying for speed runs, so will most likely trade it in after getting a couple of the other trophies like no guns or no hard landings. I felt this game had tons of potential and it lives up to a significant portion of the hype. Unfortunately, easy puzzles, bad cutscenes, an unoriginal and uninspired story, and some acrobatics requiring stupid amounts of accuracy detract from what is overall a fun experience.