Gee, thanks for the warning, G-Spot
Now this is how I know that GS staff didn't play the PC version. The mouse control is horrendous, basically if you play the PC version with a mouse, you are playing on a controller. The smoothing effect is turned up all the way so you will always have trouble aiming precisely. And there is no way to turn off the smoothing effect. Even as you launch the game and go into your options you will see the Aim Assist enabled and you will see the X sensitivity being higher than the Y sensitivity (The typical controller set up).
When you start playing the game, the immediate effects of the mouse smoothing is apparent. There's is slight carryover of the mouse momentum. I am sure PC gamers understand what I mean, but it's hard explaining it to a lifetime console gamer.
Eventually you get used to the mouse control but it's all very sloppy.
Oh the brightness, yes. You may tweak your brightness and gamma settings all you want, nothing will help. You will either lose the contrast or make everything else darker. I don't know why the devs decided to saturate the world with all these bright lights. Maybe they wanted to hide the rough edges or something.
This game is like Cyberpunk 2.0. Most people on earth live with nano chips implanted in their head that basically act as super computers. The world governments collapsed and the world is run by a few greedy corporations. Everything is bright, shiny, polished, smooth and reflective. The engine itself is pretty good and the physics is worked out.
Now, you play as a mute agent Kilo. But at least you can see your legs and you actually cast a shadow. You silently walk around and run around following orders and never say anything. For some reason people, even your boss, find that acceptable. You're not a regular person though, your nano chip is "overclocked" so to speak which allows you to perform some super human tasks. You may be able to make an enemy blow his head off, or make his gun backfire or make him fight on your side. You do so by manipulating their chips. There are plenty of upgrades to get (around 15). But the only way you can get those upgrades is to eliminate certain rival agents with overclocked chips. Upon their death, you retrieve their chips and gain the opportunity to get the new upgrade.
Story-wise, there is nothing to see here. Forgetful characters, no charisma, no dilemmas, no hard choices just a regular summer A action movie.
As for the actual game play, well I'd say that it delivers.
You get to activate the X-ray mode wherein time slows down and you get to see through walls. You can also sprint and slide which is cool but sometimes helpful when you want to execute enemies hiding behind cover. You get about 3-4 close combat executions as well. You also get to kill civilians with absolutely no consequences whatsoever.
Now, some of the guns are pretty original. The auto-aim bullet weapon is reminiscent from the Fifth Element movie. The overall feel of the weapons is good too, you can sort of feel that punch and the kickback.
The boss fights are stylish but they may get slightly repetitive once you realize that it may take a couple of hundred rounds to kill the target.
The Co-op addition is neatly done, however it's not really that balanced. What I mean is that there is this constant rush ahead and constant competition for kills. There are no personalities or any meaningful dialogue. There really is little cohesion or requirement to work as a team, so there is little payoff and sense of accomplishment when you complete the mission except when you view the statistics at the end of the mission.
Another complaint I have is the excessive hud. There really is no reason to have those giant blocks indicating your special abilities. Minimize them and put them on the side. There really is no reason to display the amount of bullets that you have left in the middle of the screen when you aim. There really is no reason for those giant indicators to be on top of the screen displaying the status of your co-op friends. There simply is too much unnecessary crap on the screen. It's distracting.
Anyways, the game is not that bad in general, it is your typical FPS with a few new tricks added. The shooting is solid, and I can tell that a lot of work went into making the game but there is little replay value overall. There is very little challenge as well because the game is quite easy.
I could see this game being sold better at Steam than at Origin. There would also be more gamers who'd be able to play co-op all day long as a result, Origin is kind of desolate in that regard.