A decent zombie co-op game that lacks the depth and content to justify a purchase. Rental at best.
-Co-op game play can be fun
-Zombies attack from random spots which keeps you on your toes
-Some interesting game play design ideas
Cons:
-Too short and not enough levels or content to justify a purchase
-Little variety in zombies, weapons, or environments
-SP mode is a joke
-Friendly AI is terrible
-Game play grows repetitive
Left 4 Dead takes a classic idea and tries to make it it's own, 4 survivors trying to make there way through a zombie out break through it's 4 campaigns; A hospital, an air-port, a midnight run through the country side, and a fight through an old train yard. All of these classic scenarios are re-imagined by Valve in Left 4 Dead, but they are not as refined as they should be.
For starters the game is short, too short. Each of the 4 campaigns will take you about an hour to finish, and while the game does randomize the location of where the zombies and items will spawn at each time you play it, the layout and environments are always the same. The result is the game starts to feel repetitive and gives you little reason to replay it again. Each campaign follows the same kind of scenario, you are 4 people who, for some unknown reason, are grouped together in some area and they try to make their escape to safety, which at the end is always a "survive waves of zombies until help arrives". As for the characters themselves next to nothing is known about them, they make occasional comments on things and you can make them talk and demand things like "pills" or help if you need it, but aside from that they are all forgettable. The only thing you know about the world comes from scratched in messages you find throughout the game from it's various safe houses you come across, but those are always generic "we deserved this" or "the end is here" type of comments.
The game play also lacks variety, the gun selection is very small, you have a pistol (can upgrade to 2), a sub machine gun, a Pump Shot gun, a Sniper Rifle, a Full Auto Shot Gun, and an Assault Rifle. That is all you have throughout this game. There are a couple of thrown items you can get like Molotov, but they don't make up for the games weak selection of weapons. The zombies themselves lack variety as well, the main ones are your standard generic ones who move fast but die in one shot and attack in waves. There are a couple of others like "smokes" who can vanish in a, you guessed it, a puff of smoke and can choke enemies with his long tongue, the "boomer" who is an obese zombie that barfs on players and causes all zombies in the near by area to gang up on them, he also explodes when shot. There is the "hunter" an agile zombie that jumps on people and attacks them, a "tank" which kind of serves as the games boss enemy, it is a big muscular zombie with very powerful attacks and takes a group effort to take down. There is also another zombie called "The Witch", who is probably one of the more creative zombie ideas, she is entirely avoidable but if you startle her she will almost kill you instantly. While these zombie ideas are interesting, they are too few and far between and do not make up for the game's overall lack of variety.
Left 4 Dead has an interesting idea in the way it spawns zombies, every time you play the zombies will come from a different direction, first time they might come out of a room down the hall way, next time they may come through a window from behind you, this keeps you on your toes and the game also does this with items as well. It is an interesting design idea, but due to the lack of environmental changes, it still does not make up for it.
As far as SP goes, the game is a joke. You fight with very bad AI team mates who are more trouble than they are worth. You only have the campaign it's self which serves just as practice for the online, it is not any different. The game does have another MP mode where you can play as a zombie and hunt down players, while this is fun at first it starts to grow repetitive after a while and it could have been so much better.
This does not mean that L4D does not have it's moments, it is fun to play with friends and there are times where you feel the intensity, but overall the game's tone is just repeat and repeat, same old same old. You will get sick of it after a while.
Left 4 Dead is a rental. It is fun with friends on occasion but there isn't enough here to keep you coming back, it begins to grow tiresome and repetitive and does not justify a purchase. There are far better co-op and zombie (and co-op zombie) games on the market that are better worth your money and time.
Left 4 Dead get's a 6 out of 10.