Both Metacritic and Gamerankings place this game at 94%. The lowest rating I could find was 80%. I'm not trying to rock the boat or anything, but I can't say I agree with the prevailing gaming media sentiment here.

Things I liked, in order of most importance to least:

Things I didn't like, in order of most important to least:

• Aside from the cover system, there's nothing else all that compelling gameplay-wise.
• The story is so dumb it cancels out about 50% of that atmosphere. Luckily the remaining 50% is still cool.
• The voice actors are rather good but the dialogue written for them sounds more like gamer smack-talk than something a real soldier would say when there's bullets flying at him. And developers wonder why everyone accuses us of glorifying violence.
• The button you press to run is the same button that turns you into a refrigerator magnet and sucks you into the "taking cover" state, often resulting in your untimely death.
• Late in the game it's revealed that the protagonist, who looks and talks like someone you'd meet at a construction site, actually lived in a giant mansion overlooking the bay. And there is no dialogue acknowledging or poking fun at this discrepancy.

I'm a bit confused as to all the hoopla about this game. It's a decent shooter that happens to have very, very good graphics. But the same game could have been made for PS2 with current gen graphics and it would have played exactly the same. Would people have loved it so much then?

Overall I give this game 7.1 out of 10. Note that I always rate with 5.5 as neutral, so I'm still calling it above average - and I would still play this game again just for those jaw dropping visuals. But in two years, when games are regularly topping this one in terms of eye candy, I suspect my opinion of it will lower slightly.