Eddie Riggs' [...] Isn't as Long as People Think it Will Be.
Let me start off by saying this. Brutal Legend has one of the better RTS systems on console. I'd rank it just behind EndWar and lightyears ahead of just about everything else. However, that in and of itself isn't saying a whole lot. The open world is standard fare for the genre: 4-5 different events repeated ad nauseam with little incentive to go do them or go exploring in the world. This is mainly due to the sense of urgency the game's story is told with.
The story itself is pretty good and fairly compelling. However, it felt about 3 or 4 hours too short. Honestly, I didn't realize the end of the game was coming until the end of the final boss battle. And that really bummed me out. That on top of the fact that you don't get to use all of your units until you're almost finished with the game anyways. It really feels like the single player was just a tutorial for the multiplayer and that kinda bums me out and leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.
Also, at points the game feels like it's ramping up the difficulty too much. For example, the first battle against the Drowning Doom in the campaign feels like the difference between casual and hardcore in terms of difficulty because the enemy strength jumps so drastically, this could also be the fact that for every battle prior to this you've had to attack full on and this mission expects you to sit put and be defensive. Also, the game doesn't inform you of unit counters until you're about halfway through the game. Basically, the main problem of this game was the pacing. It just felt like it was going to build to something awesome and epic and I don't feel that it ever really got there.
In summation: The gameplay and control are all there, the story is compelling and much shorter than you want it to be, especially for something that should have been truly epic.