An intersting game, marred by a bad story and a even worse combat and trial and error, lots of it.
Story
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You play as Faith, a Runner who usually delivers packages to people, in a city where the government has control over everything. On one mission, the cops are a bit aggressive and Faith's sister Kate is getting arrested, flamed for the murder of upcoming Mayor Robert Pope, a murder she didn't commit. Now Faith's trying to rescue her sister and finding out who killed Pope. The story is pretty much clichéd and terrible, there's not a lot of character development and everything is easily predicted. The game also never bothers explain why the government is so evil, the city looks nice and clean, so the only reason why the government is evil is because Faith and her friends say so. Everything in the story is seen before and there's nothing new to be seen in this regard.
3.0
Gameplay
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The gameplay in Mirror's Edge is a typical platformer, except that it's viewed from a first person view, you run around roof tops, jumping from roof top to roof top, running from the cops and etc. Typical fare, but it's the first person view that makes the game so special, and it's handled so well, that you'll feel like it's you jumping around in the game, it makes it exciting to jump from roof tops and escaping from the cops. For the most the focus is on running, jumping and etc. and that's where the game shines, however it does means there's a lot of trial and error, there'll be times where you miss judge a jump or have a hard time figuring our just where you to. You can hold down the circle button to see where you need to go, but how you get there can be hard figuring out and it will take some time. Faith can use something called Runner's Vision, which lets her see things that she can use in red, it looks cool and is really helpful, though it can be turned off at will.
The game also have combat, you can punch, kick and even shot with guns, it's simple and there's only a few moves, which might sound disappointing, but considering the first person view, it doesn't hurt the game. What hurts the game though, is that the combat is awful, even if you wanna beat the hell outta your enemy, he can easily punch back and at some times it'll be enough to kill you and then there's times where you hit the enemy and he hits you at the same time, which usually ends up you being affected so he can easily kill you. The gunplay is ok, but it makes the game pretty easy, the only way you can get guns is to disarm enemies and steal their guns, it works like a charm in the beginning but later on in the game it becomes really hard and extremely in precise, making the combat frustrating. The game really fails when it wants you to kill people in order to advance, it doesn't work well, since the game most of the time is focusing on running, instead of fighting.
The game is 6-8 hours long on the first play through, but the game can be finished in around 4 hours or less if you know what to do. After the game is completed, there are secret bags to find, art work, movies and music to unlock and time trials, there's also trophy support which helps a bit.
7.0
Graphics
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The graphics are really beautiful, every environment in the game are colorful, which is surprising for a game that's set in the city. Character models looks great and their animation are realistic, especially Faith's movements, which can make people get motion sickness. The game's story is told by cartoonish cut-scenes, it's really cheap, since the in-game graphics are beautiful, it looks really cheap and they don't look good either. Other than that, the frame rate takes a dip sometimes when there's too much going on and the PS3 version suffers from screen-tearing when playing on non-HD TV's, but it's a minor problem and doesn't hurt the game's looks.
9.0
Sound
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The game's voice acting is solid, but nothing special, I found the dialogue is good though. The city's ambience is good and the soundtrack really helps the atmosphere. People have probably heard the game's main theme "Still Alive" which makes up for a great theme and is overall just a good sound.
9.5.
Overall
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Mirror's Edge is an experiment, sure it's original and trying to do something now, but it's an experiment, which means that it has a lot to improve on. In the end, the game is fun and exciting and it's original, however it's marred with a bad story and a frustrating combat system. It does the running aspect great, but that's really all, it could be better, but what we have here, ain't the worst. If time trials are your thing, you should buy it, if not, you should give it a rent, as it's quickly finished. Here's hoping that the sequel will be better.