It's James Cameron's dontyaknow?...A fun game but lacking.
The team at Ubisoft have done a great job graphically with Avatar. The planet, fauna and flora are vibrant and varied, with some plants reacting to your character's movement, all of which give a convincing "hostile jungle" sense to the game. Texturing is detailed on everything be it the plants, wildlife, people or buildings they are all crafted spectacularly and conform to our presumptions of a next-gen game. Also all of which change when day turns to night, literally the jungle lights up with glows of light from everything; it's extremely pretty. Graphics is not an issue and is by far the major selling point for this game. The look of the game you will enjoy. Gameplay, on the other hand, some cracks occur.
The camera angles can be a pain and often become non responsive when trying to look around (the movement of which slows dramatically, which is not a frame-rate problem might I add) this is more prominent when you start the game, trying to navigate small corridors with a dodgy camera can be frustrating especially combined with the movement of your character as the turning circle is wide and cumbersome often getting you stuck behind chairs/desks/plants which greatly reduces the fluidity of the game. However you soon get used to the sluggish-ness which later does not become as much of a problem when you are out in the jungle.
Still along the lines of gameplay, you would expect when playing as the Nav'i (the natives) to be a big challenge seeing as you are up against bullets and rockets with your sticks and arrows; this is not the case it is easier which doesn't feel right. Although it is satisfying to down modern soldiers with your bow (you can even take out aircraft with it in a couple of shots) a little realism would have enhanced the experience instead of it being an inverted Zulu War where paper beats scissors.
Also projectiles don't carry any damage detracting more from the realism. This is evident as when you aim at an enemy a yellow rhombus highlights a part of the body. Aslong as your crosshair is on that rhombus and you fire your target will take damage. Sound's normal? Actually it isn't as the target will take damage even before the projectile has reached them (it is harder to notice with the RDA but can be quite distracting when playing as the Nav'i) this, again, makes the game a two minute job if you don't complete the sector challenges which are the most challenging part of Avatar.
The Sector Challenges are the same for both factions (with minor variations) and are the same for every single level. Unless you want the achievements tied with these, you will get bored as they are repetitive on-a-par with the investigations in Assassins's Creed.
Levelling up is ultra-fast. You'll find yourself maxing way before you have finished. The new skills and weapon upgrades you gain are an incentive but are rarely used (especially the skills) as you will find yourself only using 2/3 skills & weapons out of 6+ available.
If you buy a game based on it's achievements this game's ones are easy to achieve albeit fairly time consuming. The multiplayer achievements however are harder as not many people are online to play with (as was my personal experience) and there are some serious balancing issues.
Shooting mechanics, stiff movement, fairly average voice acting aside, when a firefight ensues in this game it is thrilling despite it's ease much to the way hackin' N slashin' through Dynasty Warriors is. You know there are problems but the game still has that Fun Factor. I'm sure if this game wasn't tied to a movie then it would've been much smoother, the potential is there albeit untapped potential which makes it mediocre in comparison with most games out today. If you must, rent, but there are other; greater, games out now (or coming out this year) which are more deserving of the price and have a better replay value.