Terminator Salvation adds nothing new to the third person shooter formula, and it has no replay value to make up for it.

User Rating: 6 | Terminator Salvation X360
Have you ever played Gears of War, Dark Sector, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Eat Lead: The Legend of Matt Hazard, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, or The Bourne Conspiracy? If you have then you have pretty much played Terminator Salvation. Unlike those games though, Terminator has no original concept at all. Gears of War created the cover mechanic, Dark Sector had the blade, Wanted allowed you to curve bullets, Eat Lead has a unique sense of humor that kept you playing, 50 Cent had an interesting arcade concept, and The Bourne Conspiracy had interesting hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately, the only thing remotely unique about Terminator is it's on-rail sequences which have been done before.

Terminator plays like any cover-based third person shooter, except with zero bells and whistles. The lack of variety in the gameplay does not help. There are very limited amounts of weapons. I counted 5 weapons throughout the game. A machine gun, an assault rifle, a grenade launcher, an RPG, and a shotgun. Enemy types don't spice much up either. You have Spiderbots, T-600's, Aerostats (wasps), and T-700's. None of them really offer a challenge, even on hard difficulty, most of them can be taken out with a couple grenades and a couple shots of the rocket launcher. If you're looking for variety in your gaming Terminator Salvation is not your best choice.

Beyond being unoriginal and repetitive, Terminator: Salvation has the gigantic problem of being way too short with no replay value. The game can be beaten in 6 hours on the hardest difficulty. There is no multiplayer, no extras to collect, not even a quick mini-game. After you beat the game, you have the choice to play it again, or stop playing it completely. I chose the latter. Hard isn't much of a challenge either, if you've beaten Gears of War on Hardcore difficulty, this should be a piece of cake. As long as you stay in cover and flank your enemies, Terminator's hardest difficulty is a cakewalk.

That brings me to my conclusion, with an extremely short length and no multiplayer to speak of, Terminator is not at all worth $60. In fact, I wouldn't even pick it up at $20. Terminator is an alright rental if you're looking for another generic shooter or an easy 1000 gamerscore, but there is absolutely no reason to buy this at full retail price.