This is not a perfect game. Honestly, I'm not sure if I would even call it a good game. And yet, something about it has made me replay it about four or five times, probably more times than any other game I've replayed ever. The movement system is fluid and it's a joy to go from place to place in the city, Mercer has a mobility that not even Heller in Prototype 2 reaches, and fucking around throwing cars and old ladies is pretty cathartic sandbox fun. I don't think there's any aspect of this game I don't have issues with though. Game looks like shit, the story is shit, there's no sidequests other than shitty challenges and stupid collectibles that I refuse to get because there's like 500 of the fuckers around the single ugliest depiction of Manhattan I've ever seen, somehow even uglier than the real thing, I don't remember a single track of the soundtrack, and while the movement system is fun, it just breaks down in small spaces or when you need precision.

Gameplay in general has a fair bit of issues, in my opinion. Way too many soldiers with rocket launchers that can stun you, and the hunters, the beefiest type of infected, are incredibly irritating. They have this one attack that's a flurry of claw swipes; It's unblockable, uninterruptible, interrupts your own combos, it's first few swipes stun you a bit so you will always take some hits, and it does a shitload of damage. And naturally, they spam the attack all the fuckin time. They are also capable of outrunning you even at the highest running speed possible, and love to claw you in the ass while you're trying to flee. Terrible game I hate it. Will replay again next year.

Felt like replaying, so I did. I have a certain amount of nostalgia for this game, even if it didn't age that well. The movement system chokes and dies in small spaces, but in the open its a joy to just piss around, jumping over skyscrapers on a single leap or running up the side, the music is so forgettable I finished the game like an hour ago and don't remember a single tune, the story is pretty mediocre, the protagonist Alex Mercer is a fucking dickhead besides being boring as sin, the combat is pretty unbalanced, but its kinda fun to find things that break it, even if most enemies aren't that fun to fight. There's always an asshole soldier with a rocket launcher you didn't see, and a missile to the face staggers you, which gets pretty annoying fast and besides dodging you don't have any way to counter. The infected aren't much better, the only unit they have that actually might threaten you is the hunters, a bunch of hairless pink gorillas that do a fuckton of damage, and have an uninterruptible, unblockable and pretty damaging rush attack, and they are invencible while they do it, and they do it very frequently. Doesn't help that the game puts you in a lot of escort fucking missions in the second half of the main story. In fact I would say that no main mission is actually that fun to do. Gotta be honest, besides nostalgia this game doesn't really have that many redeemable qualities.