If you like to be constantly blown up - even on the Easy difficulty - with no (apparent) reason, this is the game for you. Apart from this, and the frustration to be shot at from enemies you just cannot see (because of the horrendously pixelated foliage / environment), this game can be moderately fun. But it's anyway worse than other games using the same Build Engine, so you better spend your money and time playing those: Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, etc.
Despite all of its cons, I was amazed by its pros: - Beautiful and immersive world. It's a game that feels like you really are in a world of its own. Not just a "place" (like Deus Ex or BioShock locales), but a real, wide and surprising world. You could roam around and just soak in all the beauty and details. - Options. Yes, missions are all similar (not to mention the never-ending checkpoints), but you are mostly free to tackle them the way you want. SInce it's not script-based, no event ever plays in the same way: you could try to tackle a mission ten times, and it would develop differently every time. - Combat options. The above it's true for combat as well: you have many weapons to choose from, but you have to compromise (due to its three-slots system). So you have to choose your combat style and choose the weapons accordingly, forcing you to adapt your combat style to the resources available. Save for trying a different weapons setup later, and invent a different approach. Almost limitless combinations. I won't go into the negatives here, because they have already been discussed a lot. I just add that, despite the hours of fun I had (I think 60 hours of gameplay), this game left me with a sense of sadness in the end. Maybe it was because the final part is mostly linear (and after all the previous freedom it feels oppressive); maybe because it felt like all my previous efforts - in the end - amounted to nothing. I don't know. I mostly had a blast playing it (with the occasional frustration), but it left me with this tinge of sadness - so I don't know if I want to play it again (like I thought I would, while playing it). Anyway it was a hell of a ride, and I'm truly grateful for this experience :-)
And I stopped playing it quite early on in the game. Yes, it was - to me - that awful, boring and flat. My real vote should be one star but, since I didn't see it all, I had given two stars for fairness. Perhaps I had high expectations (I love Unreal, after all), but I wouldn't have minded a decent sci-fi shooter. Instead, I got a game so uninspired and boring that I stopped in the middle of the second level, I think. There was nothing "terrible", it was just... "Bah. Why bother? It feels such a drag..." YMMV, though.
There are three types of games: - the good ones let you choose different ways to reach an objective (e.g. Deus Ex, Bioshock, Sniper Elite); - the mediocre ones force you through a single, linear way; - the bad ones let you think you can choose, but punish you when you try a way that's not what the designer intended. Alas, Iron Storm is the third type of game (most of the time, at least). When you try something different, it hinders you in unfair ways (you slow to a crawl, you meet invincible enemies...). Some levels are good (the trenches, the town), but some are quite awful (the underground facility, the train), or confusing and frustrating (the final Reichstag). On top of this, you have a few bugs, and an irritating unbalanced difficulty (I played on Easy... and it was sometimes too easy, and sometimes very hard!). Its "saving grace" is you can fast save anywhere; and trust me, saving often it's the only to way to finish this game while keeping your sanity. The premise was good and the game has some interesting ideas and atmosphere, but it also has uninspired locales and gameplay: in the end, it's a game that could have been good, but it's seriously flawed. Try it if you find it cheap and you have low expectations, but prepare to be frustrated.
