Syndicate

It's a pretty dead time for new releases it seems.  Diablo 3 and Ghost Recon 4 are some time in the next couple of months, but we've been left rehashing all the old games from the end of 2011.  I never got into Mass Effect since it was mostly single player, so I didn't really notice Mass Effect 3 come and go.

I've been playing some Syndicate, that's the only thing that's relatively new.   It came out in February, and was a pretty good take on the whole cyber dystopia thing.  It's "generic" but I'd think anything that takes place in a such an environment would be considered "generic" nowadays.

They have some interesting mechanics where you have to do hacking and fighting at the same time, with enemy troops and drone robots that have shields and other defenses that need to be hacked and disabled before you can hit them.

I also liked the way the characters didn't just move around like they were on caster wheels - there are definite footfalls to the motion, and you move in discrete steps, yet it's not awkward whether you move fast or slow.  Maybe it's just an illusion of some type, but it really worked for me.

Also very cool are data overlays on your weapons - you get your bullet counts and functions listed next to your guns, instead of being an actual readout display - very clever and fits the milieu, with everyone (who is anyone) being chipped to see data.

Also, its a co-op game for it's multiplayer aspect!

The only things I don't like about the game is that:

One, it is too short.  The campaign is kind of fun but short singleplayer.  There are lots of multiplayer maps, but there need to be some more soon, since they are starting to wear thin as the central aspect of the game.

Two:  You can get every power in the game half way to maximum level.  At that point, all the different agents you play with, some specced for fast hacking and repair, some specced for armor or extra damage, start looking all the same.  Sure you can pick different application software to load, but the chip upgrades really would have given us a bit more... variety in agents.  Weapon upgrades are pretty good too, but they are sort of like the chip powers too - you will basically upgrade all aspects and not just some aspect, no strategy involved.

Three - and this is a common thing I dont like in general about online multiplayer no matter the game - NOBODY SAYS ANYTHING.  I could be playing with AI drones, geez.