This game is definitely worth checking out. The dated gameplay makes it a little difficult to wholeheartedly recommend, but the story is interesting. Although I would argue even that aspect is dated to some degree for reasons that would spoil the experience. It's better to view this game in the context of when it was released - 2012, at an enormous high point for other shooters such as CoD and Battlefield in their skyrocketing popularity, when it was still tons of fun to shoot through hordes of mindless NPCs in service of progressing the "help the good guys, stop the bad guys" plotlines. You do the exact same thing in this game, but this time the game makes it clear that your comrades really don't want to be doing it, which gives the story a layer of self-awareness that was sorely lacking in the AAA shooters of its time.

I understand this game has a somewhat small yet very dedicated fanbase who love this game for what it is, and that's great, but I do believe it was a tad overhyped for me as a result. As I said, it's still worth playing even if only because it won't demand much of your time. (On the lowest difficulty, it took me only 4.7 hours.) Overall, despite its dated factors, it is still an interesting case of a mid-budget game with some creative and risky choices in an oversaturated genre. I wish we got more like it.

At the suggestion at ElkinFencer10, who I believe was the last person to post about this game on this thread, I played through the whole thing in one sitting, and it is a recommendation I shall pass on. Going in, I knew the story of the game was very centered around real horrors of war, but I really had no idea where it was going to go from there. Even in the spoiler section, I shall speak very minimally in terms of story, but I shall do slight references, so I implore anyone who even slightly thinks they'll play this game to not read the spoilers.

First, from a gameplay perspective, the game is nothing new. You could just call this "Gears of War with Good Story" and that would be a fairly accurate series of events. It's a 3rd person cover shooter on last gen, and it really follows the tried and true formula for what makes those games fun. While it really doesn't do anything new, it also doesn't do anything wrong, which is really the best thing I could've asked for in a game like this (reinventing the wheel just wasn't necessary for the narrative they were trying to tell to be successful). BUT the gameplay is really not the main event in this game, as you, reader probably well know.

The main event here is the story. For the public bit, I will only comment that the story is voice acted very well, and with the exception of one performance drop in a cutscene, the game also runs very well so that never really broke my immersion. Additionally, there are "intel" bits you can find and collect for extra details on the world and the main character's thoughts, and THANK GOODNESS they do not commit the Mafia II sin of having them strewn about battlefields. With the exception of one in chapter 10 and one in the last chapter that has combat, all of these intel pieces are in places where there's no combat anyway, and I was able to find all of them on my first playthrough. They're never really nefariously hidden, as long as you keep your eyes open and hug a wall every now and then. Not necessary to the story or the experience, but I like when games do something gamey that doesn't break the immersion too much COUGH Alan Wake COUGH.

I highly recommend that you only read the following section if you've already played the game, as to not bias yourself in any way.

Damn, this game really threw me for a loop. The way your squad breaks down as you go through the game, and slowly breaks rules of decency and mercy are just so fantastically nuanced in their presentation. It was only in retrospect did I even notice in several areas that the game was trying to get across a major point thematically, but because it just fit so well in the narrative and the atmosphere at the time I hadn't noticed it (or it just wasn't something you'd realize with the narrative at the stage it was at). And that twist, hot damn, I love when a game/movie can give me a twist I NEVER saw coming, and this game fucking delivered.


Verdict: DAMN recommended. If you are going to play ANY shooter of last gen for its story, make it Spec Ops: The Line. It is now one of my favorite story-focused games in any genre, and especially the shooter genre. It's only 6-8 hours long (depending on how much you die, and I died quite a bit on the last couple chapters, but I only took 7 hours) so it's not an incredible time commitment, and I do sincerely recommend playing through it in once sitting to get the full experience of the narrative at once.

Genuinely a pretty cool and unique anti-war story but gamers are weird about it because apparently subversion and making the player do clearly bad things against their will is taboo :^(
That aside the main character has some great characterization, I especially like how his callouts become more and more insane throughout the game, it's a really nice attention to detail. The other characters are also very well handled but Mr. Walker is what really sold the game for me.
I won't defend the actual gunplay tho it's erm not good, very annoying at points.