Wonderfully Mediocre
Yes, by the title of my review you would think that I hated Syndicate, which isn't true. I actually came to enjoy quite a bit of Starbreeze's latest game, a reimagining of the 1993 game of the same name. However, all of my enjoyment of this game stems solely from the cooperative aspect of the game. The single-player game is a jilted mess of mediocrity. What's more disappointing is that EA and Starbreeze were able to get some bigger voice acting names in that of Brian Cox and Rosario Dawson, yet that doesn't compel me to enjoy the story at all. You play Miles Kilo, in the near future of a typical futuristic totalitarian society in which everyone has a chip implanted in them. Those that don't, they are the scum of the earth, and they live accordingly. Evil corporations control the world, and everyone pretty much works for one of them. The story falls into the typical bullshit of your character coming to grips with his humanity, and saving it at the end. There's really no more that needs to be said about the story, other then that it flat out just kind of sucks. The meat of this game takes place in the cooperative mode, in which you and up to three other bros can jump in and tackle one of nine missions. These missions are mostly varied, and they are all extremely fun and a gigantic blast to play with each other on. From there, there is an insane amount of "challenges" that you can complete that help you to finish off one of the game's more difficult achievements.
My favorite aspect of "Syndicate" is in that it doesn't just throw you into a cooperative experience where if one person is dicking around, that's ok. Everyone has to work together to accomplish the goal, especially when playing on a higher difficulty. There were some announces with the co op however, especially the fact that party chat didn't work out the gate, which was frustrating.
Overall, Syndicate should be a game solely approached with co op in mind. IF you got a group of buddies and dig co op games, you will love Syndicate. For those that don't, Syndicate will just be another mundane shooter.
