"Payday: The Heist" might sound like an generic game, but it isn´t...
Payday the heist is basically an non-stopping action game with some twists. There is one mission (Diamond Heist) that totally breaks the action and turn's the game into an Tactical/Sneaking game, and I must say, this is one of my favorite missions.This mission is really hard but, in the other hand, it is really fun to do it cooperatively, since you can do numerous tactics to accomplish the mission, and in the end it is really worthy.
The tone and atmosphere was clearly influenced by many Heist movies, but in the therms of gameplay there is almost no innovation, this game takes a lot from Left for Dead. This is not an bad thing, because the gameplay is solid, it´s nothing perfect or innovative, it´s just solid, and for this game it works out decently well and I must say, in this game there is no such word as "linear gameplay", the only thing "linear" on this game is the map design, because the rest is somewhat random. Every time I played one mission for the second or third time, something was different in the map, and the police response was also different. Sometimes there was some cloackers sneaking or even an Bulldozer going towards my team position at the early stage of the heist, and this sort of things makes the game feel less repetitive and much more enjoyable.
The sound design was good, but I must say one thing, the soundtrack was amazing! It really helps to keep an great atmosphere.
Payday The Heist has some great ideas and some of them are greatly executed, but after some hours of playing the game and repeating a lot of levels, I feel that this game could offer so much more...
I think that this game has great potential and uses it´s inspirations as an advantage, but it has some heavy negatives. I felt that payday was in some way incomplete, I would really like see some type of Insider mode (like in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days) or even an Versus mode (like in Left for Dead) on this game, like Cops vs Burglars. I agree that some maps would not have an great design for this game mode, but some other maps are almost perfect. The game menu could have been better, I needed to spend some time to figure out if my guns had the attachments that I was trying to put. This game is heavily targeting the cooperative multiplayer gamer, there is no Single Player, no character development, the friendly A.I is decent, but sometimes they do not respond well to the situations, and you will need to do the objectives by yourself, the A.I only helps you to stand up and giving some covering fire.
Payday: The Heist is an surprising game that I still spend some time playing with my friends. It´s an enjoyable game but it needs much more. If SOE [Sony Online Entertainment] is going to make another Payday, please make more game modes. I would also like to see these characters have some development, an story. For all of this, Payday: The Heist deserves an solid 7.5 out of 10