A highly engaging experience that is worth experiencing, regardless of your personal taste in games.
The longer I sit here trying to type up a half decent review, the more I realize that I don't really have anything to compare this game to. I read Heart of Darkness, the book that inspired this game's narrative, but I honestly don't remember anything about it, aside from rivets. I know even less about that Apocalypse Now movie that had the same inspiration. The only other video game I've played that even came close to this in terms of story and narrative was Fate/Extra, which really didn't delve into the whole "what kind of monster have I become" plot as well as it should have. No, Spec Ops: The Line reminds me the most of that Psychology experiment on whether or not being ordered to do something is actually a viable defense. If you're unfamiliar with the experiment, a bunch of psychologists took some volunteers and told them to ask someone in another room some questions. If the other person didn't get the right answer or didn't respond, they would need to electrocute them with progressively stronger shocks. Fortunately, there was no other person, just some per-recorded responses depending on how far into the experiment each subject went. When they hesitated in some way or another, and boy did they hesitate, the on site researcher would tell them to continue. Only one person stopped before hitting the highest voltage level, which was well past the point that would kill someone. This game is basically that experiment.
In order for this to work, the development team needed to do three things; they needed to make you do something bad, make you feel bad about it, then convince you to keep going. At first, you could be forgiven for assuming that this is just another Call of Honor: Battlefield Whatever rip off with a bunch of American protagonists going into a city in the Middle East with good intentions before shooting up some locals with guns. However, it quickly gets worse, much worse, as after each step you take, you'll realize that you have actually done something horrible, with each crime getting progressively worse. Main, non-silent protagonist Captain Walker will come up with some reason or anther to convince you and your two pet NPCs to keep going, with each excuse getting weaker as the nature of every crime gets worse. By the time his excuses get petty and insignificant, you'll be too numb, entranced, or whatever to even care, at which point the game will do more to make you feel like shit. I suppose Walker is acting like the authority figure from the experiment mentioned above in that his weak excuses are the only attempt the game makes to convince you to keep going. The worst part is that it works; just as the test subjects needed little convincing to keep hesitantly electrocuting someone they couldn't see, the audience needed little convincing to continue to shoot at the obviously not evil soldiers at the other end of their gun barrel. You'll keep going, even though the game is doing everything it can to convince you to stop, from having the soldiers you're supposed to be shooting talking about normal, human stuff, like how they miss their families and can't wait to see them again, to the loading screens unashamedly telling you that this is all your fault, with all of this leading to one end game monologue that might as well have been an open palmed slap to the face. This game is truly great because everything is used to reinforce the narrative and lead up to that single point the plot, including the gameplay. This tight focus makes the whole experience stronger, since it means that no time is wasted on something irrelevant that doesn't lead back to the central point of the plot. Portal 2 (I can't speak for the first game) stands as another strong example of a game with a similarly tight focus; the plot and story exist to throw you into situations where you need to solve puzzles with a portal gun. Many games, and other forms of art as well, lack this strong, narrow focus, often spending too much time on something petty and insignificant in order to be as homogenous as possible.
The last plot related detail that's worth mentioning are the very few moral choice moments that you're presented with. These are all stronger than the scenarios encountered in most other games because Spec Ops actually allows you to make choices that it didn't specifically tell you to make. For example, there's a point where you're told to either save a citizen who stole water, or the soldier who killed the man's family while apprehending him. The choices you're not told that you can make include, but are (possibly) not limited to, shooting the snipers that are present, shooting out the ropes, or leaving both of them to die. In the end, the choices you make throughout have little to no lasting effect on the game, but they might have some effect on you.
I suppose all that's left to talk about is the gameplay, which again puts me into the awkward position of having nothing to compare it to. As I said before, this is a genre that I despise and have never delved into, and thanks to the developers, I never will, which leaves the closest point of comparison in my repertoire as either Mass Effect 3 or Fallout 3, both of which are role playing games with shooter elements, not shooters. I suppose all I can really say about Spec Ops: The Line in terms of gameplay is the same as what I said about Mass Effect 3; it's functional, gets the job done, but it's rather boring. Spec Ops is significantly more linear, but that's to be expected; a game with a strong narrative, that puts emphasis on said narrative, would be difficult to pull off in any other way.
Another similarity this game has with Mass Effect 3 is that there is a multiplayer mode that has no reason to exist. It's even worse in Spec Ops since said multiplayer completely conflicts with the overall tone and message of the game. Calling the people who made such a stupid decision idiotic hypocrites becomes even sweeter with the realization that it was the marketer's idea, not the developer's. If I've done my research correctly, then the only reason an unnecessary multiplayer was tacked on was because said heartless monster said the game wouldn't be well received without one, despite the fact that the multiplayer would not only distract from the main campaign, but also clash with the message. You, marketer person, are to blame for this game being poorly received because of it's shity multiplayer. I hope you're happy with yourself. While I did say that Mass Effect 3's multiplayer was unnecessary and shouldn't have existed, it's presence was tolerable because it had some small overlap with the actual story and Mass Effect's gameplay, while not exactly great, was at least fun to some small degree. I've never even touched Spec Ops: The Line's multiplayer, nor do I intend to; everyone's told me it's shit, I found the gameplay of the actual game to be more frustrating than enjoyable, and it doesn't belong there.
Despite those flaws, Spec Ops: The Line still stands as one of the greatest video games ever made simply because this game's story would have been, or was, significantly weaker in any other medium. Only a video game could have made it's audience feel bad for the things it told them to do, actions that had become ingrained and natural thanks to the countless other games the audience has played. Spec Ops: The Line is an experience that is totally worth your time, regardless of who you are; play this if you're a fan of realistic modern war-like games, play it if you're not, pick it up if you like to play video games, give it a shot if you don't. This is a highly engaging experience. This is art.