Great acheivement, but does that mean fun?
Essentially this is a very well done game, it deserves a lot of credit for its polish. But at the same time does that translate to fun? For some people yes and others not at all. I fall into the camp of mostly no, the amount of sheer fun and excitement in this game were to heavily drown out by the tedious, boring and unexciting sifting of detective work.
The graphics were smooth and the new tech with character face animation capture is amazing for games but isn't as close to reality as some like to hype. The voice acting and production levels are also on par with some of the best games of all time along with some of the writing. The albeit little shooting is great and feels solid, along with the driving mechanics and on foot physics. Saying that I almost feel with how linear this game is it's like Rockstar forgot to unleash quite a bit in this world they created.
The mix was near 70% detective work just digging through crime scenes, 15% interrogations and another 15% chasing and shooting. It all boils down to what you like as this game offers a narrow few main styles of game play. If you find yourself a fan of adventure games and digging around crime scenes for clues this game will knock your socks off. But if you want an action packed cop drama you will likely be disappointed with this offering. Again though we must not forget that this game is really good at what it does, sadly that won't translate into fun for all.
