Despite coming away from the original Crysis fairly lukewarm on the experience I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by its standalone expansion, Warhead. In just about every aspect the game feels leaner and more cleverly designed. The missions are more focused without losing the freedom to approach the various objectives how you like, and that sandbox mission design is sandwiched between linear set-pieces that succeed at giving the whole game a more bombastic energy.

The story being told is still quite dreadful and for some bizarre reason they opted to direct all of the cutscenes in third-person, meaning you're left with hilariously overdone editing/animating in these moments that so badly want to be like the filmic action scenes they're inspired by.

Even so, I can't deny that I had a better time with this expansion and that it came in at around half the time it took to see all of Crysis was certainly a bonus.