Obvious Hyperbole: This is the game Enter The Matrix should have been.
Essentially, the game puts you in the shoes of Mr. Anderson: Neo. The One. Keanu "Whoa" Reeves. You start out the life of a lonely computer hacker with no combat skills ("whoa, look out, man. I might shove you, and you probably aren't going to like it!"). Slowly, Neo comes to grips with his powers throughout the game; every once and awhile, generally at an important part in the plot, Neo becomes more "aware" of his power, giving you a new move to try out. Sometimes, learning and mastering this move is key to survival. This is what really keeps the game so fresh: Neo himself is always changing, always evolving. In addition to new skills you learn while you play, Neo has a skill tree that comes up at the end of each scene allowing you to learn new combos or strengthen old ones.
Combat is great. Shiny went to great lengths to make Neo's fighting skills as impressive as possible; and as such, it's easy to defend yourself against 5-10 people, even if you're surrounded. It's easy to get a handle on, too. There is one button for dodging, one button for attacking, one button for throws/special moves and a button for jumping. This might sound simplistic, and it is, but it doesn't ever feel cheap or too dumb to use. Enemies are relentless and skilled, and it will take some real mastery of the control scheme to take some of them down.
Weapons are also represented. Both wooden and metal swords, bow staffs, baseball bats, hatchets, and more can be picked up and used by Neo to knock enemies around. They are very satisfying to use, and generally have some very impressive special moves. Gunplay is represented as well, although it takes some getting used to - Click the R stick inwards to initiate auto-targeting, and flick it around to change targets. Generally, in practice, this works pretty well - although targeting dead bodies becomes something of a hassle and getting the auto-targeting to switch to somebody that's behind you is difficult; often times you have to switch off targeting, turn around, and switch it back on again. Overall, combat accurately captures the over-the-top style of the films pretty well even if it's difficult to come to grips with at first; my personal favorite is running up to someone - kicking them in the gut - sending them into the sky, and shooting them dead before they hit the ground. Bullet Time is represented, of course, through a "Focus Meter". Neo is pretty limber, but entering focus mode gives him added strength to his punches, bullet dodging abilities, added jump height - generally, it's an "Improve everything I can do for as long as I have enough Focus to do it" mode. Even your special moves get considerably fancier when you're in bullet time.
The storyline seems to, at first, follow the movies pretty closely. But soon, you run into a new scene: To extend the game to it's seven-or-so hour length, Shiny padded out a lot of scenes. The ones that could not be represented in gameplay very well are ignored, and the ones that WOULD make good gameplay end up being a lot longer than they were in the movie. For instance, at the beginning, when Neo is fleeing from the agents - rather than a short section, we're treated to a long, drawn-out Splinter-Cell stealth section. Neo must sneak around, take cover, and not get detected, as he works his way up to the building's rooftop and then get chased back down again by Agents, to the ground floor where Trinity is waiting for him on her Motorcycle. However, about 3/4ths the way through the game, what start out as cute little filler side-quests to extend the length of the game and bridge the gap between movies, begin to take over the whole game. After the Burly Brawl segment from Matrix Reloaded, the game steers head-long into the weird and goofy; with such locales as a sadomasochism dungeon, a world similiar to an MC Escher Painting where you fight human-sized Fire Ants, and many more. In truth, it feels like Shiny's weird sense of humor begins to soak into the game; remember - these guys were responsible for EarthWorm Jim, MDK, and Wild 9. Weird and goofy is their bread and butter.
It all climaxes in the new ending for the game written by the Wachowski Brothers, which is the capital of goofy. The Wachowskis themselves say it's because Path of Neo, is, infact, a Videogame, and people don't want philosophy garbage as an ending to a videogame. To me, simultaneously, I think the ending is both awesome and one of the most stupid things I've ever seen in my life. It feels as though the Wachowskis gave up and just said, "Yeah, you're right. All this stuff right here is really stupid and heavy-handed. Let's make it goofy and weird, instead!" - as if they don't respect what they even made, and are throwing it in the trash. Like it succeeds in cheapening what little was left of the Matrix franchise even more. But, at the same time, you cannot deny that the new stuff will at least make you crack a grin for some reason or another.
Visually, Path of Neo is a mixed bag. Environments look stunning. High-res textures, reflective surfaces, and lots and lots and lots of destructible objects. The problem is when you start looking at player models. To put it simply: They're ugly as sin. They look greasy, lumpy, and often times only bare passing resemblances to their movie counterparts. Even clothes; non-leather clothes, look greasy. Most of the new dialog and cutscenes take place using the in-game engine, which is pretty impressive - but you start to wish Shiny had waited for the Xbox 360 and PS3 were out to do this game. The framerate, even on the Xbox version, is never stable - especially in cutscenes. This is a game that could have really shown it's stuff on the Xbox 360, and I have to wonder if the PC version looks like this.
But if there is one place this game stumbles, beyond crummy player models, it's the fact it just feels unpolished. There are certain little things you will notice here or there that characters will do, or say, or how they move... that just looks wrong and unfinished. Models contort and twitch during cutscenes in some very strange ways. Sometimes controlling during fights will get a little strange as characters mysteriously teleport to your location or you end up clipping through part of a level. It just doesn't feel like Shiny ironed out the best game they could have made with this; the gameplay is there, and it's certainly fun, but everything else could have used another six months of polish; and to me, the way the game gets wacky near the end - feels less like the Wachowskis wrote a new ending for Path of Neo and more like Shiny was just trying to wrap the game up as quickly as possible. Almost all of Matrix Revolutions is ignored in this game.
All in all, this game is worth a purchase. It's not the best game ever, but it packs plenty of good gameplay and a fairly large amount of unlockables - from concept art to cutscenes and more. But it's just not worth a "Go out and buy it now" purchase; and I get the feeling this game will be the king of the bargain bin.