Dark makes a poor first impression, in part due to its progression system and because it simply doesn't look good. Thick black outlines are used to convey a comic book aesthetic, but the art design is a real mixed bag and the animation is stiff and buggy (vampire hero Eric Bane's x-ray vision frequently reveals enemies sliding across the floor). Having to unlock basic stealth skills greatly limits the player's options in early levels. Unlike Sam Fisher, Bane can't climb on or over things, so multi-story spaces feel like disconnected horizontal planes linked by stairways until the player upgrades their Shadow Leap ability (which is essentially a clunkier version of Aragami's central mechanic, albeit three years earlier). Later on, Shadow Grip (which kills enemies and dissolves their body from a distance) is so clearly superior to other offensive skills that it renders half of the unlocks redundant. On top of this, the writing and voice acting are laughable at best; any thought of moral dilemmas is dropped as soon as a COBRA-like paramilitary faction shows up. Another annoyance are the checkpoints, which are sometimes frequent and sometimes sparse, but almost always on the wrong side of cutscenes that can only be skipped through one line at a time.

So Dark is not a top-tier stealth game; this is sort of the 2010s equivalent of the first wave of Splinter Cell competitors such as Stolen, Rogue Ops and Mission: Impossible - Operation Surma. And like those games, it's obviously messy, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't having fun with it. Once you've gotten the hang of Bane's most useful abilities, it can be satisfying to teleport around the levels and pick off dimwitted enemies one by one. Though the final boss fight is ridiculously easy and anti-climactic, the subsequent DLC mission has more gothic atmosphere than the rest of the game put together and gives the impression that a sequel might have gone in more interesting directions. It's too bad that Dark wasn't polished enough to build any demand for one.

One of my favorite guilty pleasure game. Dark is an absolute train wreck, but it's so much fun to laugh at that I can't help but love it.

The game desperately wants to be a serious vampire noire story (specifically, it really wants to be Vampire: The Masquerade), but the plot is nonsense, the characters are paper thin and the voice acting is downright hilarious, even though the voice actor for Geralt from the Witcher is voicing the main character. It's impossible to take anything here seriously, but the fact that the game tries so hard to take itself seriously is exactly why it's so funny.

The gameplay is also incredibly easy to break. One of the first moves you can get is a force choke that instantly kills whoever you use it on. The AI is too stupid to function on a basic level, so the enemies pose no threat to you. And even without any special moves you can just sprint up to most enemies and one shot them with a single punch.

If you can get this on sale and like vampire stories, I'd say give it a try. If you like Vampire: The Masquerade, this is a great way to see what VTMB could have looked like if all the devs were completely incompetent.

DARK é um jogo de stealth em que nenhum dos aspectos do gênero foi bem executado.

O level design se resume a seguir um caminho, esperar que os inimigos virem as costas, matá-los e seguir em frente. Com os poderes de vampiro, é possível escolher melhor quem matar e evitar certos conflitos, mas as fases raramente são feitas com isso em mente, no máximo é possível cortar um caminho mais longo que poderia ser percorrido caminhando. Só 3 dos 9 poderes vampirísticos realmente são úteis, dois sendo habilidades básicas da maioria dos outros jogos de stealth (distrair com sons e matar à distância silenciosamente) e o outro sendo um teletransporte básico sem muita distância e que faz bastante barulho.
A IA é burra, os guardas são a encarnação do estereótipo de inimigos de stealth: eles olham pra um canto por 10 segundos, caminham lentamente para outra posição e passam mais 10 segundos olhando pra lá. Além disso, é extremamente inconsistente, nunca é claro quando eu estou em cover, eles podem me encontrar se estiver escondido atrás de certos objetos, mas não se eu tiver atrás de vidro ou uma cerquinha.
Não é muito melhor por parte do protagonista, que se move em 8 eixos, é lento e apenas toma cobertura umas 60% das vezes que você clica.

Nem é um jogo interessante de jogar, é apenas chato, as fases são semelhantes e não há incentivo para explorá-las, a variedade dos inimigos é uma piada e a inconsistência na forma como os personagens se comportam na gameplay tornam um jogo que, segundo o relógio in-game, dura 3 horas em algo que demora o dobro.