This game's clumpy mechanics, ridiculous load times and poor voice acting are some, among many reasons not to buy it.
Omitting too much detail of why gamespot criticizes the games take on the army (which it does quite well) it's enough to just know it's a linear squad based game. You will get to choose between Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem, both mercenaries who throughout the story, establish themselves as characters actually quite well. You don't get to change between mercs throughout the game but it doesn't matter, since niether has any recognizably different attributes than the other. What Army of Two does is introduce a concept called the aggro system. This is seen in games like Everquest and other online multiplayer games where the strongest character, or person doing the most attacking draws the attack of the AI. Army of Two uses an aggro meter to measure how much aggro you or your partner are attracting. Whoever has the aggro in the heightened direction will draw the fire from the enemies, while their partner can sneak around and use the flank system of taking out the unsuspecting opponents. This is a concept never really directly used before, making it a somewhat nice little contribution to the world of shooter games. It's even supported well by certain weapons being more prone to drawing aggro than others. This is listed in the attributes of all the guns, which you can purchase in between and at the start of each level or checkpoint. What's cool about this is that you effectively make use of the term "payed guns" by collecting money by completing side missions within the primary missions. These side missions are relayed to you by what is possibly the most cold and annoying person ever, your HQ director Alice Murray. They can vary from shooting down helicoptors, to blowing up extra missles, to taking out heavily armored foes. It's really too bad that you can't access the shopping menu until you are prompted to, which just doesn't seem often enough. You CAN swap weapons with your teamate to diversify your arsenal, which the in game tips suggest, but why wouldn't they just let you pick up weapons dropped by the enemies?
Throughout the game you will use squad based tactics to get through tough battles. One such tactic is the co-op snipe, which allows you to initiate a sequence in which both you and your partner use sniper rifles to take out two unsuspecting enemies. I guess it's pretty neat, but you hardly ever execute this manuever throughout the game. In fact, most of the fire fights consist of you just having your AI partner draw all the fire while you go around and kill everyone or shoot the back of the armored guy, who for some reason just has to be shot in the back rather than blown up by explosives attached to his back or something more logical. When injured, you'll need to take cover and wait to recover. If you get shot too many times you will go down and your partner will have to drag you out of fire to heal you. This was an absolute disaster of a system to begin with. For one thing, your partner will often drag you INTO fire, or he'll just drag you around aimlessly for several seconds until the both of you are shot and you have to start over. He also seems to always get incapacitated in the worst places, like right in the dead center of a hot firefight where you couldn't possibly save him. The healing process itself can be frustrating, as it takes a long time to do, and if you're shot while doing it, you have to drag your partner somewhere else and start over again. Fortunately you can shoot while incapacitated, but it would have been nice if they would have made the bleedout time a bit longer.
Another issue is the game's mechanics in general. Running around feels clumpy, and it's extremely difficult to hit any moving targets. You can slide into cover, but even that can have undesired effects. For instance you may slide into the side of a cinder block or sandbag instead of behind it and just get shot. Or maybe you just didn't want to slide behind something you will anyway, and then get shot. The guns also don't sound very real, and they take an unreasonably long time to re-load, which also makes a humerous but obnoxious little clicking noise. Certain parts of the game become just unplayable.Towards the end you will traverse the enemies headquarters in a large open room where you're completely exposed in and will probably die about 12 times before completing.
And if the difficult parts aren't frustrating enough for you, the load times will be. The loading in between levels takes long, and even navigating through the menus takes way longer than it should.
The list of negatives goes on, as the the voice acting is...well bad. Salem sounds like a poorly selected 13 year old boy and Rios seems to have an accent at random times for some reason. Pick an accent and stick with it! The story is pretty forgetable as well, as Murray just nags the two of you to complete something as quickly as possible. This isn't an atypical component to many games where you have a radio contact, but when she sternly barks orders at you while you're fending off enemies by the dozen you will likely want to rush to the headquarters and strangle her. The personalities of the mercs also aren't very well crafted, as they seem to just be interested in doing all the right things, as opposed to being what they should be ; HEARTLESS MERCENARIES WANTING TO MAKE MONEY!
It's been said that playing this game with a human partner greatly enhances the quality of the experience, but it's hard to forget about all the other problems the game has weighing it down, even when playing with someone who actually knows what they're doing.
Considering the long load times, poorly developed mechanics and bad voice acting, it's just too hard to recommend this game to anyone. Although Army of Two presents an interesting co-operative concept to the shooter genre, it just doesn't execute it well at all. If you're a huge fan of shooters and EA engine games, and don't already have an xbox360 with Gears of War, rent Army of Two. By no means buy it.