Infernal is probably the third person shooter of the year
So lets compare Gears of War (PC) that's otherwise an excellent game on XBOX with Infernal in terms of a PC third person shooter game:
1. Gameplay: both games feature fairly linear gameplay with some puzzles along the way (puzzles are better in Infernal). Firefights are excellently done in both games, but maybe somewhat more exciting in GoW (PC). NPCs' AI is also very well done in both games.
2. Multiplayer: GoW (PC) clear advantage since Infernal is a singleplayer-only game, tho you have to be lucky to find someone on line to play GoW (PC) co-op with.
3. Graphics: Almost impossible to determine which one is better in this respect. Both games come with excellent graphics and visuals. I'd say that Infernal features better graphics in general except human or humanoid models which are better in GoW (PC).
4. Sound: sound is very good in both games and as far as music goes you have a clash of the game music composer giants between Kevin Riepl (GoW, UT 3, UT 2004, City of Villains, etc.) vs. Adam Skorupa (Infernal, Painkiller, Painkiller Overdose, The Witcher, etc.). High quality stuff in both cases.
5. Movement: clearly Infernal is superior in this respect since it includes jump, standard crouch, and a better "take cover" (similar to R6 Vegas) mechanics.
6. Weapons: in respect to the number of weapons, Infernal clearly wins. Aim mode is better in GoW (PC) since Infernal doesn't have any aim/zoom mode except on the sniper. Tho, the reticule is better in Infernal since in GoW it's a bit too large (most likely a remnant of dealing with the imprecision of Xbox controllers). Weapons in GoW feel better when fired than in Infernal.
7. Difficulty: the games are about the same difficulty.
8. Technical Problems, CTD, Bugs: GoW -- full of them, including CTDs, no startup after install, loosing its own saved checkpoints, stuttering, problems with LIVE accounts and its software. Infernal -- none (or close to none).
9. Smoothness of Play (frame rates): No matter what you think about Infernal as a game, it's the best optimized game of 2007. High quality graphics running with ease at a high frame rate with no frame rate drops. This should be somewhat of concern to Epic that a small Polish company can have such a superior performance on their custom game engine (Nitrous) topped with PhysX (for those who have PhysX card) that beats the hell out of Epic's famous Unreal 3 engine with the same or higher quality of visuals. GoW (PC) is nowhere near this type of frame rates or smoothness, even in the game sections where there are no sudden frame rate drops or stuttering.
10. Ported to PC: GoW is obviously an Xbox port. Infernal was developed for PC.
11. Manual Saves: GoW (PC) -- no manual saves, no quick save, only arbitrary checkpoint saves that are frequently lost (so you need to replay large section of the game over and again); Infernal -- 10 slots for manual saves, quick save.
So, why is it that mostly US game critics have problem with this game? The first reason may be that the Euro edition was out before North American release, and European distributor/publisher (Playlogic) did much better of a job than Eidos did with the North American distribution in introducing, creating hype and popularizing the title. (In retrospect, Eidos put the money on the wrong horse, Kane & Lynch, instead of fully backing Infernal). The reviewers' scores reflect that since German publications rated the game above 8 with German PC Games rating it 8.7/10 (or 87/100). But no matter what happened within the secrecy of critics' offices, this game is a much better product than a "5.9". On the other hand maybe so called "AAA" games that come with large ad campaigns are always overrated by 1 to 3 points so more realistic scoring is called for here ... more courage from game critics to say: "hey, this is a lousy port job and I'm not going to be the tool of pushing it on my readers." Oh, well.
Anyways, if you have any inclination towards third person shooters, Infernal is probably the third person shooter of the year on the PC platform. My strong preference is FPS games, but this one plays and feels very similar to GoW (PC) or El Matador ... meaning, it plays almost like an FPS game. Metropolis (the developer) did a fantastic job on many aspects of this game from great graphics, to the best optimization I've seen in 2007. The game has its weaknesses (lip-synching for example sucks in many parts), but overall this is a very good game.
Score: 8.2/10