An above average Role-playing game, but sports alot of flaws that might madden the average consumer.
Story goes is that man has gone out to the farthest lengths of the universe to colonize the universe, to see what treats god had in store for them, but yes, Aliens started to attack Human Colonies, Humans retreated, the Aliens followed, its an interesting premise, but the plotline follows the whole, "aliens attack earth" plot, which, I am not saying its bad, just gets a bit repetitive, the story can be a bit interesting, but the characters don't.... develop well persay, you get to know them, but it all feels very forced, and the voice acting doesn't help since it to feels... well lets just say it just skirts the boundaries between mediocre and terrible...
Gameplay wise, its like diablo, except with guns, you point and click to attack an enemy, and like every RPG, you can get better guns and what not, this is an interesting setup, but point and click shooting is very disjointed, and can be very maddening, especially against tougher enemies, clicking an enemy to death with your standard machine gun could just as well strain you hand, but again, you get better weapons along your journey.
The camera is pretty bad, considering that its pretty much one consistent view, you do have the ability to look around, but its very limited, and can't be put to much tactical usage, it would have been nice to look around the whole ship, its maddening sometimes, mainly cause its kinda hard when you are trying to take cover.
Level design isn't very intuitive, mainly cause its point A to point B, you sometimes get to paths, but they don't change up anything, just a couple objectives here and there, but they end up in the same place, basically you get to look at something different down each path.
You do get allies along your journey, they are competent, and sometimes will take cover, but like every other Sidekick, you better keep a close eye on them so they don't die on you, so in other words, you friendly AI will do there job, just not with the same efficiency as you of course. The Enemy AI is a bit of a different story... They aren't stupid, but they aren't smart either, sometimes they will just stand there, usuall waiting for you to unload into them, but then again, the game would be a bit frustrating if they ran every where at the speed of light, you do have the ability to free aim, but thats usually only useful against exploding barrels.
Perhaps the most interesting sidekey, is HR-V, a combat robot, which I consider a very versatile combat robot, being able to outfit with different upgrades, and weapons, but has no personality, so no use trying to get to know him kids.
The 2 tech trees you get in the game is Combat, and Mechanical, the way you advance is up to you, the pace of which you advance is up to the script, you get experience points at the end of each chapter, so unlike Mass Effect, where reaching level 30 for example in a couple hours could be done, you can't reach the max level in a couple hours, which kinda detracts from the experience.
Loot from the old dungeon siege isn't present, the only "loot" you get is in upgrade points, or cybernetic ups, unlike in Dungeon Siege where you could get a stronger weapon from an enemy you killed, you get things like the rocket launcher at a scripted moment in the campaign, detracting again from the experience.
An interesting addition in the gameplay is the Humanity levels, in the course of your journeys, you encounter Cybernetic upgrades, to help you combat the alien menace, but at the expense of your own humanity, mainly, limiting your upgrade tree if you do such cybernetic upgrades, the only reason to stay human is the bonus you get at the end, so choose, easier ways to fight the Aliens, or a bonus at the end?
The Graphics are good, but not great, the animation is smooth, the particles, the effects, the blood, you really do get a sense of mayhem from the experiece, and feels good, all and all, it comes to a relatively low requirement, you don't exactly need a powerhouse to run this game, which is good for those who have not recently upgraded there pcs.
The atmosphere is excellent, the feeling of a space ship never felt so alive, the music does help to immerse you, but the endless array of corridors, crate filled rooms make it impossible to find your way around, you have been warned. The idea of keycards to unlock doors kinda fall under the catagory of red, blue, green, much like Doom, which also detract from the experiece.
The sound is... decent, again the voice acting is very spotty, but the explosions, the weapon effects, although nothing special, this game is not exactly the sound power house to test your dolby digital surround sound system.
The only multiplayer is Coop, not a bad addition, but doesn't exactly work persay, cause it kinda looks like a marvel ultimate alliance coop scenario, and it can sometimes be easy to loose ones team mate.
It looked like a promising experiece, if they took a little more time to develop the game, by getting rid of the Camera angle and turned it into a third person game, it would have been a better, and perhaps develop the RPG elements a bit more, it would have been alot better, but this experience its pretty decent, but don't expect to get any long lasting value out of it...