Major and minor dissappointments in virtually every area keep this from being the classic it should have been.
Unfortunately, Starbreeze has exceeded my expectations in that department. Let's start with the most core aspect of the game - the shooting. Instead of building on a solid shooter engine, the game features one of the most pathetic attempts to create one I've played on either the 360 or PC. While it looks pretty good (mostly) the game runs poorly the majority of the time, and can occasionally run so choppy it's a pain to look at ; it really says a lot about the developer that they'd rather design a game that's nice to look at in pictures (advertising) than one in which the frame rate is smooth enough to make the game fun to interact with. Also, for some strange reason, the aiming crosshair is tiny, which maybe makes sense on the PC, but not on a console game, and this crosshair tends to dissappear very easily.
Aiming is done by pressing down the left thumstick, which is incredibly awkward. The reason for this is that the game includes some dual-wielded weapons (mostly useless at range) and a melee attack for single wield weapons, both of which use the left trigger. Neither is a justifiable reason to make aiming so awkward, and the melee attack is probably the most brain-dead thing the designers could have added, since there's no point in using it thanks to the execution-style moves you can do at close range.. Ironically, the only redeeming quality of the shooting is the execution-style moves, as there's a few neat animations.
Somewhat making up for the lack of all of this is the darkness itself. Getting possesed by the darkness gives you access to some pretty neat darkness moves such as black holes and a stealthy little "creeping dark" that you can sneak around to enemies and kill them. The big draw of the darkness, however, is the darklings, and they are in many ways the best part of the game. Not only is it fun to order them around in the middle of combat, but they have a lot of personality muttering to themselves and smoking some fat cigars. But even with the darkness itself, the game is not without flaws. The creeping dark a little too difficult to use, because, ironically, the control scheme is too simple. It really feels like the controls don't allow you enough control over what it does, leading to a lot of frustration as you try to lead it along - especially where your climbing walls and going from room to room. In addition, the game's only indication on how strong the darkness is (in other words, how long until it stops manifesting) is by markings on the side of the darkness tentacles. Which is pretty stupid. Or at least it is in the final product, since the designers ALSO decided to make the tentacles move around, making it impossible to see these markings at times. Considering this game, like most games, can't seem to perfectly correlate it LOOKING like you're in darkness to the game actually behaving as if you were in the darkness, this can lead to some annoying deaths, as you can take little gunfire when the darkness isn't shielding you.
As if this weren't enough, the story is terrible and helps ruin the entire experience. Now, don't get me wrong, a shooter can have a terrible story and be a magnificant game. Of course, that depends on the game not being designed AROUND the story, which this game is. A good proportion of your game time in the Darkness is based around interacting with characters to move the story and game along. These sequences are terrible. No, really, they're terrible. The game has a role-playing-ish way of letting you choose dialog options. Problem is, you have no control over Jackie's character, and the game is so short you probably wouldn't care if you did. All it does is slow down the game and make it more tedious. On top of that, while not really a huge issue, it is kind of annoying how the game shifts needlessly between first and third person perspectives. There are enough first-person games that tell the story strictly through one perspective that it seems incredibly cheap. As well, the "loading" scenes where Jackie is talking are also kind of dissapointing. Don't get me wrong, the voice work is solid and it's nice to LISTEN to him, but why the videos? They aren't interesting, and he can't even lip-sync the dialog, so it just highlights a weakness in the game's engine. I'd much rather just listen to him and see a normal loading screen. Finally, the game is short (even shorter if you ignore the dialog as much as possible) and there's very little incentive to play it a second time. It's really unfortunate that the designers messed up this game on every level, because it could, is SHOULD have been a classic.