Prey isn't a bad game, but there have certainly been games that were much better.
I first caught wind of Prey about a year ago when that 11-minute gameplay video was released. It was incredible. The graphics looked amazing and it seemed that the game would provide a unique arsenal, unique enemies, and unique mechanics.
When the demo was released, I immediately downloaded. At this point, the graphics were not nearly as impressive, although they did still look quite good. However the gameplay did not deliver. And the same is true for the game itself.
The portal system which has been hyped constantly, is really much less interesting than it seems. In the first few levels, the portals provide for an interesting experience, but they soon become pretty-looking doors and nothing more.
The ability to manipulate gravity is also much less interesting than it once seemed. Although this system does provide for some cheap thrills at the beginning of the game, it soon becomes a simple way of extending gametime. The puzzles which utilize the gravity-changing are extremely easy and require little thought at all.
The spirit walking ability is also not used in an interesting way. At first it is lots of fun to look at your floating body and shoot arrows and pass through force fields. But this ability soon becomes a simple tool for opening locked doors and such.
Basically, all of the unique features of this game are not utilized in a creative way and the way in which they are utilized is boring. It's a shame since these three features could've provided for so much interesting gameplay.
The basic shooting elements of Prey are all fine. The weapons look cool, but they're all fairly standard weapons. This is a shame since they all look like unique alien killing machines.
Prey has pretty good graphics. The environments look especially good because they have that whole metal/organic look to them that's pretty neat. Prey's audio is decent. The music is fine, although I don't like many of the licensed tracks. The guns sound pretty boring, compared to the way they look. The voice acting by the main character is weak and at times he sounds like a whiny crybaby that needs to STFU. Most of the other voice acting is fine.
Prey doesn't have too much replay value even though it's a pretty short game. This is because Prey is ridiculously easy. Death has no penalty since when the main character dies, he is transported to some island or something where he has to kill a bunch of flying aliens and then he comes back to life exactly where he died. This takes away pretty much any sort of challenge this game could have presented.
Prey's multiplayer is very standard. There are the normal Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes and all of that sort of thing. None of the multiplayer modes are too creative and as a result the multiplayer isn't all that interesting, although it is considerably more difficult than the single player experience.
Overall, Prey is a standard, incredibly easy shooter with pretty graphics and decent audio. The unique gameplay elements that were so heavily hyped ultimately disappoint because none of them are used as creatively as they could have been. It's strange that a game that took such a long time to develop turned out so standard. It's a shame really.