Why is The Saboteur so underrated?

I played this game with very low expectations, since it didn't score very high on Metacritic, but truly I think this game deserved a better score. Though the gameplay is not absolutely perfect, it's still good, the world feels alive and brims with variety and a great narrative, which I find it to be pretty rare in video games.

Anyone played and like this underrated gem?

I felt the same thing after playing it very underrated.

The story was very good as well graphically could have been more polished though.

I enjoyed it. Nothing special though.

At the time of its release media was scoring games based on the accompanying marketing budget. They still do this a little today, but less so.

This game had a very small marketing budget. So it was considered to not be a big deal. And therefore it would have to be quite a standout game to ever get a high score or to get reviewed at all.

If the market back then was more like today it would have stood a better chance.

I have it, but Mercenaries 2 is way better.

Last gen, there appeared to be a lot of single player games that were very underrated for some reason, 2 of my favorite games... like literally in my top 15:

1. Spec Ops: The Line

2. Binary Domain

Never played Sab. Might one day, though.

I think it's big problem was that it was released 2 days after Assassin's Creed II. It felt like AC2 had just set a new high bar for open world parkour gameplay, Saboteur looked like it had been made obsolete in comparison.

It's still a decent game though.

It's a great game imo, fantastic setting with a great story; Irish race car driver turns French partisan in WWII. What's not to love?!

It has excellent style, too; between the banter between Nazis (one conversation has them talking about how hot Bettie Page is, then the other guy is like "don't let the SS hear you saying that" lol), the characters, and the black-and-white color scheme in occupied zones (with red Nazi highlights)...it just oozes style.

I find it funny how The Saboteur was so ill-received when Red Faction: Guerrilla pretty much copy-pasted the formula and it was well-received (not a slight against RF: Guerrilla, I love that game too).

I have a soft-spot for action-heavy open-world games that don't take themselves too serious like The Saboteur, RF: Guerrilla, Just Cause, and so forth. They're just...fun!

That's a fair point, and having replayed The Saboteur less than a year ago, I have to say it has not aged well. Still fun, but not a timeless classic.

I love the game. Every bit of it.

Its just so fun to freeroam the map, and take out nazi stuff here and there as you go. And once you get the bazooka (which does not take that long via perks) you can really go town and start taking out tanks and such with ease.

also, missions themselves are great, varied and interesting. I never felt like I was repeating stuff while doing them.

Really liked the atmosphere and the looks, both colour and black/white. NPCs were fun too.

Climbing, movement, driving and shooting worked really well too.

Yeah, really great game all round.

I got it for free from origin, I have heard that is somewhat underrated

I haven't played that just heard it from my favorite youtuber:

I loved the idea of bringing color back to the city.

But like most of Pandemic's games, the saboteur felt half assed and rushed.

I'll agree with that. Seemed like a decent game, but it was kind of horribly designed.

Played it a few years ago. Reminded me of Sniper Elite. It is a 7/10 game for me. Not fantastic but good fun.