Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

With multiplayer in tow, Space Marine represents a pretty solid foray into third-person action, particularly for a developer which founded its reputation on real-time strategy.

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine is exactly what you'd expect: bloody, brutal, bombastic. The mix of hack'n'slay and shooter really won us over.

All the shooting, hacking and slashing in the Warhammer universe make for a long and very enjoyable experience. However, a few small issues, like the rather boring way in which the story is told and online connection problems, keep it from receiving a master score.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is a title that brims with great visuals, solid sound, and some very good gameplay.

Space Marine may not have convinced me to buy thousands of dollars worth of pewter figurines or tabletop maps, but it did provide some serious, bloody fun.

Space Marine sports some cool visual touches, but its presentation falls shy of the top shooters' slick production values and its camera becomes a bit over-caffeinated during close-quarters combat. [Nov 2011, p.86]

Sometimes it's very relaxing to just shut off the brain and perform some indecent acts of brutal shooting and hand-to-hand combat. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine delivers this experience in abundance. This is an enjoyable experience that falls a little flat due to pacing and repetitiveness, but for sheer brutal fun, it's hard to beat.

Space Marine asks players to become single-minded servants to the call of combat in a variety of brutal forms, each equivalent in intensity, efficiency, and ardor. A satisfying, cathartic release, though with minimal cerebral stimulation.

The game moves along nicely, eliminating potential problems with repetition; the graphics are great and the multiplayer is enormous fun, despite a few technical problems. OK, so Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine isn't the most original of games, or the most innovative, but it is finely polished and paced, and offers enough entertainment to overlook any shortcomings.

Space Marine gets off to a sluggish start and it never really reaches the lofty heights that long-time fans of the tabletop games probably hoped for, but Relic has still done an admirable job in making their first AAA-level action game - and the online play is a definite fun distraction if not entirely unique or long-lasting.

Relic's Dawn of the War series remains the best video game adaptation of this universe, but Space Marine is a close second. The combat – for both single and multiplayer – pumps out barbaric excitement and continues to improve as the adventure unfolds.

A pleasant surprise. It provides a good story wrapped in some very enjoyable gameplay mechanics. Whilst it does have a few niggles, there's no denying that it's a hoot to play through as you hack, slash and blast your way to the Spire. The key issue though is the lack of variety.

Space Marine's intuitive system will have you carving hordes of enemies with your chainsword, power axe, or hammer in no time.

A pleasant surprise in the third-person action genre, which results in a frantic action game with a splendid campaign, that Warhammer 40.000 fans will love. It offers constant action and challenges, and has three different difficulty levels to make sure it is accesible por all the gamers.

Overall, I would say that if you are a fan of explosive, blockbuster-style gameplay with a lot of blood, guts, and glory, then this is most definitely your game. Even if the gameplay was linear, I was most satisfied by the blood of my enemies, which covered my armor and dripped, like so much wine, from my sword.

If you are a fan of Warhammer I would suggest picking up Space Marine for the joy of playing and creating a hulking mass of destruction.

Space Marine doesn't break any rules or push any boundaries, but Warhammer fans across the globe might finally have the non-RTS Warhammer game that we've been waiting for.

It could use some fine tuning but it's a great first entry for the series and I can't wait to see where things go. The campaign could give more of a reason to come back but you'll be hard-pressed to find a better multiplayer game out there.

The campaign may be a little short and rough around the edges, but it still is a great adventure that should not be missed by the fans and should be given a try by people unknown with the Warhammer universe.

The artificial intelligence in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is pretty bad and the story is very poor. On the other hand this game is extremely brutal with quite some entertainment value.

Apart from being set in the Warhammer 40k universe however, it doesn't really have its own voice - but Relic now have a basis to build on. If you like the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Space Marine is a must buy - but if you aren't familiar with it you might want to leave Space Marine aside.

One of 2011's best surprises.

It may not be the best or most original action game, but it's a fine first outing for the franchise, and a rare gem for Warhammer fans.

Brash and bloody, Relic's action-centric take on Warhammer does nothing extraordinary but delivers more fun and quality than the average shooter.

Devotees to the 20-sided dice will be pleased with the level of fan service on offer here, while even those who've never dared step into the Games Workshop will garner some no-thinking-required enjoyment from this fun if basic orc-driller. [Nov 2011, p.98]

It is far from perfect, but it's fun, if the idea of slaughtering orks pleases you.

Fans of the Warhammer universe will love its setting and plot, and the way it plays, although not perfect, is brave and original.

It's both a light and funny action game and a wasted chance to make something more due to an overall unpolished job. Strongly consider it if you love Ultramarines though, since they get a great depiction.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is on the shallow side, but it still serves up plenty of "waaagh!"

With incredible sensitivity to the brand, Space Marine lets you pound thousands and thousands of Orks into the ground, it just doesn't know when to quit.

Space Marine isn't a disappointing game, it's just an uneventful one. As such, fans of the series may find more to salvage here than the average gamer...If the pacing problems could be addressed, the addition of a campaign co-op mode, and more multiplayer maps leave a healthy amount of room for improvement for the future of this series.

There's potential in expanding the Warhammer: 40,000 license beyond the strategy genre – something Relic has done with great success in its Dawn of War series – but there's also clearly a lot of work to be done.

An interesting mix between TPS and Hack'n'Slash. Unfortunately, level design is too linear, resulting in a driven and boring progression.

Combine this lacklustre multiplayer with a solo campaign that only lasts six or so hours, and Space Marine is an experience that's much too small for its impressive looking Powerboots. Only the super diehard need apply here. [November 2011 p74]

A lack of variation and great deal of repetition affects the over all game experience negatively. Though fans of the Warhammer universe will likely enjoy the design.

Warhammer is a game that will appeal to fans of what has already gone before. I'm not sure that there is enough meat in the title to convert newcomers and I would highly recommend a rent first. For those who have loved this series in the past then I can say gladly to pick it up and watch the characters you've known and loved kick some serious butt.

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine's story line is repetitive and unappealing - to the point that the game somehow manages to be both extremely short and entirely too long at the same time.

It's just too bad that the online matchmaking is totally broken on the PS3, making the game's fun online multiplayer a total chore to experience.

The one note action might be pitch perfect, but the lack of variety or any real tactical depth soon drowns it out.

For a first shot at making a TPS game respectful of the original Warhammer 40K license, Relic managed to deliver a nice game. The solo campaign still lacks ambition and tends to choose the easy way over the more varied one, with a 100% action centric gameplay, but its fury and playability still brings a lot of fun. It would have been nice, though, to be able to enjoy a little more in that regard. In terms of multiplayer, Relic did a good job as well, even though only one of the couple of modes wields enough tactical elements to last in the long run. So all in all, it's a nice translation of the license in the TPS genre, but not one that would stand on its own without the rich GamesWorkshop universe.

An entertaining game with great design, but not varied enough to earn the better grades.

Overall, when you strip away our automatic affection for the universe, you're left with a simple story full of thin characters and predictable twists, where the combat quickly descends into a repetitive war of attrition, and a small suite of online modes that can't compete with the bigger boys in the genre.

The sort of simple, dumb, licensed game that causes the shelves of your local game shop to buckle under the weight of sheer undesirable mediocrity. [Issue#210, p.94]

The online trouble, coupled with the lack of spice in the campaign, leads to a very average game that drags on for a few hours too long.