DmC: Average Hack-n-Slash carrying a brand name.
Gameplay: Ok for starters you need to divide this into a couple of categories.
Combat and its problems.
-For the first 1/3 of the game combat is pretty fun. You can combo pretty easily and for beginners its a good system. There is no lock-on however, and in harder difficulties(than normal/easy) it does hind the fluidity of the combat will get you hit from time to time as the auto-lock system does not always target what may be your intended target.
The combo system is essentially a damage meter. It cares not what attack you do as long as it does a lot at one time. You don't really need to change the attack either, for example take drive/overdrive: You can sit in the corner all day and use it and get SSS rank without ever switching, its that broken.
While the attack system does let you combo normal enemies quite easily it does however pose what may be the biggest problem of the game:color coded enemies. This system puts blue and red enemies against you and you can only attack with the 2 weapons assigned to each color. This is utterly stupid in my opinion as it simply narrows down your combo's to a exteme degree, especially for actual looks when using the weapons. Its pretty poor design that you have 5 total weapons but can only use 2 for certain enemies. I wouldn't bring this up for most games but it really does come around quite a bit in the combat and detracts a hell of a lot without the ability to lock-on to your target and the enemy ends up backing away only for you to lock on to another target. This is something not mentioned in a lot of reviews I find which keep saying that the "combat is still up to par with the other DMC's", while this may be true for the normal mobs(to some degree) it is a definite lie for the other 2/3 of the game and makes me wonder if they even finished the game to begin with.
-Also it is worth noting that DMC combat in general is a lot slower than most if not all other hack-n-slash games including the previous entries in the series. The game itself does run slower in combat(30fps) than the other DMC's as well(60fps).
Platforming and puzzles.
This is kind of shocking but for all the level design in the game the entirety of the platforming is just grapple and jump. Seriously, grapple + jump is all they could come up with? really? I mean even for DMC, there was still SOME platforming there.There are NO puzzles whatsoever as well, which is kind of shocking given soo much of this game is based on the imaginary world of "limbo". Even most of the jumping/platforming is just plain boring.
Story and Characters.
-Note: the entirety of the story AND the characters are non-canon.
Dante is a rebel/anarchy teenager. He cusses, hates authority, the works. He wears a UK sweatshirt, pretty much the whole shibang on just looks. He's not a badass and really just talks too much with cusswords, horrible one liners, and overall childish "i don't care about anything" attitude.
Virgil is somehow a computer hacker and dante's "mentor" in this game. He plays such a small role in the gameplay its shocking that they even put him in here considering all he does is compute stuff and most of that could just be solved with a sword to be practical.
Kat is annoying to say the least. She generally is like the DmC navi, and when vergil goes "yeah you helped" in the end and she gets offended I almost died laughing from the truth in that. She's a platforming tool/helper and nothing more.
The story is bad and really not worth mentioning as its really just that bad. Its about some guy who corrupts humans behind the scenes and blah blah blah every villain ever. Limbo is just some crappy element that literally happens with no real explanation halfway through the game several times. Almost none of the cutscenes have action in them, half of them are just plain unimportant to the story, and the rest are boring uninteresting drivel thanks to the horrible writing.
Replayability:
Really to be honest there is about 8-10 hours of actual gameplay here. ALL the upgrades after level 1 are really just more damage, so instead of a nice shiny new attack you just get more damage(how utterly boring I know). Its almost painful how boring the upgrade system is after you unlocked the basic stuff. I'm not jokin, for the 5 melee and 3 ranged you get there isn't really much to upgrade in terms of different attacks. They all follow the same pattern and most of the blue/red weapons really just take the ground attack and apply it to the air as well(or vice versa). The difficulties are really a joke if you are looking for a challenge. I've personally completed everything but Dante Must Die! and Hell or Hell, and to be honest I'm not a great DMC player.
Sountrack: Screemo, nuff said. Its not particularly good to me but I'm not really a fan of the series. Its comparitively weaker than the other series OST but eh, its all in personal taste there.
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Bottom line: Its not a game I would recommend. Its too short for the money and its definitely going to alienate any fans of Devil May Cry 1-4. But without comparing it to the other games in series I give it a 6/10 due to it not delivering on the entertainment end.
Its honestly disappointing how Ninja Theory took this up only for it to be end exactly as Heavenly Sword did.
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If you REALLY want to play devil may cry, I would suggest Devil May Cry 4. It looks better, plays better, has a better story/characters. Its pretty cheap at the moment(around 5-12 dollars) and will definitely give you more than this game can in any regard.(especially in the boss battle department). If you've already played it and are hungering for a hack-n-slash just bide your time till Reveangence.