Fun But Broken
I really enjoyed the original one, it was a great xbox game. I liked this equal to, it would have made a great xbox game. And there lies this games biggest short coming, it's kind of ugly and buggy as all get out. The graphics are not that far from it's previous version, just streached a bit to be widescreen and some "next-gen" effects added. The environments are needlessly sparce (you'd think with the overhead they are saving from weaker graphics they could have added more into the game). What things are in the environment have a tendency to float away for unknown reasons.
AI in this game isn't pretty ether. The enemy while not out right worthless doesn't put up much of a challange (unless of course they're driving a tank, helicopter, or say a battleship). Your freindly AI may as well not exist. I had real trouble trying to get them to shoot at anything when we're getting shot at while driving or walking around. I also had great difficultly trying to get people into vechiles as well, there is a mission where you've got the option to rescue these two pilots for extra money but I had to call in the e-vac copper 4 or 5 times to get them. Most of the time the helicopter would land and then they would just stand there looking at it rather then going to and getting into it.
If you can overlook those things then what made the orignial fun still makes this one fun, blowing stuff up. While the missions can get repetative due to their lack of varience, I still had a lot of fun over the duration approaching every objective differently. Wheather you grab a helicopter and use it to take out a few targets, run in commando-style, drive into a fight with a car strapped with C4, or just call in a MOAB and level the area it's those choices that keep this game entertaining. Here's to hoping they make a better Mercs 3.