The concept and ideas outweigh the execution and delivery...
User Rating: 6.5 | Metro 2033 PC
It's impossible to overlook the painfully poor PC optimization of this game. Running a quad cpu at 3.7ghz with 8gb ram and an OC version of a GTX275 and a dedicated soundcard, the frame-rate is very poor on max settings - given that this is an "nvidia" supported game, and I have a card that only 3 other nvidia cards can beat (and I have an nvidia chipset), I find it ridiculous that I literally get maybe 50% of the performance of at max settings (1920x1200) compared to Bad Company 2, and even Crysis Warhead. I'm not saying I have the best system out there (quite a few ATI cards would eat mine) but the point is if my system struggles so much with this game, I can only imagine what it does to a mainstream/average system. Any PC game that is so poorly optimized doesn't generally get a brownie point. As far as the video settings, you can't even turn off AA, you can't set v-sync on/off, anisotropic filtering goes from 4x to 16x - that is, those are the only two options, not ranged. This might not be a huge issue to some, but I think PC games should give the players the option to set their own graphic settings.
As for the game itself - well, the voice acting is not surprisingly terrible - typical fake accents (never get it why a russian in russia would speak english to his/her comrades but with a russian accent...), dry dialogue and very cliched conversations. The sound is fine, enough depth to make it pleasant. The graphics are nice though, I mean, what you see is nice - good lighting, nice effects (at the expense of painful framerates), but that's about it. The game does have some depth though, I mean it's very atmospheric, though at times I think the darkness is a little over the top.
As a wrap-up, all I can say is don't get your hopes up that this is a "new" game which will set a new standard. There is not an ounce of "freshness" in this game. It's ok to play, but I think on the whole you're be more disappointed than not. Cheers!
