Terrible. Wait for Ace Combat. Massive let down. This is nothing like flying, more like space invaders.
Don't get me wrong I still had fun in the early portions of the game, and the early portions of the game did impress me as there was plenty of variety – but what seemed at first to be something new and fresh quickly became dull and tedious, and by the end of the game – FRUSTRATING!!!
The game has a decent story driven campaign (though cut scenes seem stiff, and were not the most impressive I have seen this generation), and should take you 10- 15 hours to play through.
The graphics, design, and layout of the game are good, but far from impressive – though I have to admit that some of the areas you will fly over look very good (until you get close to the ground). Airplanes could have looked much better with more detailing.
Sound is descent, but once again, I have heard much better in other games of the same genre. I would have liked to have been able to hear other planes and incoming missiles as they rushed past me, and explosions should have had a more defined bang.
Controls felt ok as the layout was similar to most flight games, but not as responsive as they should have been.
Finally, AI was poor (wingmen are useless), and enemies seem to have an endless supply of flares – prepare yourself for some long dogfights that will last upwards of 5 minutes. This may not seem bad until you consider that you don't have that much time to take on one fighter while the rest of the enemy pummels your fleet, or whatever else you are supposed to protect. In my experience, this was not a problem at the first, but by the end of the game (namely the last two missions) became overwhelming.
This is where I really appreciated the online multiplayer. I was able to host a game, and with the help of my newly recruited wingmen we were able to kick some tail end on one mission. The last mission, however, was extremely frustrating (even with 3 other guys helping me and several attempts), I was not able to complete it, and got so frustrated that I went to my local gaming store and traded HAWX 2 for Infamous (a game that I missed out on last year).
In short, HAWX 2 is fun for a little while, and even has some exhilarating moments (such as gunning the enemy from an AC-130, or escaping from a Russian airfield) these moments got my heart thumping and made me enjoy the game, but in the end, poor AI and frustrating campaign missions led me to the game trade counter. My guess is that this game will attract many as there are several things to like about it, but for me, I am looking forward to Ace Combat, as it will be released to the PS3 in February 2011 – I hope it impresses me enough to keep it in my collection (at least for longer than one week).