Overall, a shooter worth your time, though the "I've been infected and I am turning into a monster" thing has been done to death.

I am not sure I like the "glaive" thing (you will instantly be reminded of the movie Krull!) ... it is cool to begin with but gets old ... there are times where I wish I could just go nuts with a machine gun but you can't really (until much later in the game after lots of upgrades).

The glaive can do a lot, including picking up stuff from a distance (such as a box of ammo), which does not help the "believabilty" much. I would have prefered that it not have that ability.

What is cool is that you can "guide" the glaive after it is thrown, sort of like in Heavenly Sword, but it seems to work better. At about Chapter 3 (when you learn how to guide the glaive) you come across a puzzle that will surely stump many gamers (you have to 'bend' the glaive over a barb-wire fence to hit a control panel to open a gate).

The firefights are long and perhaps too drawn out, but I do like the "shield" enemies ... they definitely make things rough since you can't simply carve them up like the normal enemies.

I wish the game focused more on the unusual enemies, like the 'berserker' type monster you meet fairly early in the game (which is a lot like the criter in Gears of War). That really got my hopes up. But then it went back to slicing and dicing more Russians with machine guns.

The controls are fairly simple ... R1 to fire a weapon (a handgun for much of the game) and R2 to throw the glaive. Oddly, to use the glaive as a melee weapon you have to press a face button, which took a little getting used to. There's no jump button, a pet peeve!

And, the "underground" weapon upgrade system is just weird. It seems cheap and tacked on.

Still, a fun shooter that is easy enough to get into. The mood/tone of the game is dark/creepy and will appeal to many. The graphics are good enough ... and the sound effects are actually quite good if you have a nice system.

I'd give it a high of 83 and a low of 75.