Oh man, I really lucked out with this one. With the exception of Salim, all the characters sucked. And on top of that, I had to deal with vampires and aliens, the two most boring antagonists we could've had. The setting was really interesting, being ancient Mesopotamia instead of Egypt like we usually get but then it descends into some poorly thought out sci-fi twist. Boy did this one drag on.
And let's not forget the pretty egregious depiction of the Iraq war. The only sympathetic Iraqi character is Salim (because he was conscripted), while the rest of the Iraqi soldiers are treated intolerant towards our American protagonists. There's Jason, who starts out racist but through the power of knowing one person of colour, you can magically cure of that. The death of an Iraqi civilian is played as a tragic backstory for the American soldiers who killed her. And don't even get me started on the whole 'enemy of my enemy' narrative as though the US didn't just invade Iraq for their oil.
And let's not forget the pretty egregious depiction of the Iraq war. The only sympathetic Iraqi character is Salim (because he was conscripted), while the rest of the Iraqi soldiers are treated intolerant towards our American protagonists. There's Jason, who starts out racist but through the power of knowing one person of colour, you can magically cure of that. The death of an Iraqi civilian is played as a tragic backstory for the American soldiers who killed her. And don't even get me started on the whole 'enemy of my enemy' narrative as though the US didn't just invade Iraq for their oil.