Syndicate

Syndicate shows a lot of potential, but never seems to come out of its shell. For that, it just feels all too familiar. It delivers on a delightful atmosphere though, and the coöp mode will keep players busy for a couple of intense hours. A fine snack, but definitely not the cult classic the old Syndicate was.

A complete overhaul of a remake that might disappoint fans of the original series. With that said, it's in no way a bad game. The setting, the weapons and the hacking mechanics provides a fun experience. Especially in the cooperative online mode.

While Syndicate has a great premise and story, the story telling is paced too slow to keep interest high, a plot twist you'll see coming because it's been done many times before, and sadly the ending is very disappointing and unsatisfying. Syndicate in the end felt very mediocre aside from a few of the weapons and the boss fights. I know I'll forget this game in a short time, and if it wasn't for the interesting co-op, it probably would have been scored lower.

Challenging enemy AI and a bag of cyber tricks aren't enough to make up for weak atmosphere and story.

Although the new Syndicate has very few to no ties with the legendary game from the '90s, it's a solid FPS, with great atmosphere and some very interesting gameplay mechanics.

Looking past the glorious environments and solid four play co-op, Syndicate is mostly a technically competent shooter lacking the edge to truly stand out in the homogenous climate of its genre.

While Syndicate's campaign lacks emphasis, playing the cooperative mode more than satisfies anyone's needs for challenging squad-based gameplay.

Just one warning: The co-op missions do not scale with player count at all, and they are definitely designed to be tackled with four players. Three players? You'll probably do fine, if you're careful. Two? Really stretching it. And solo? You'd have to be a masochist to even try.

Starts off brilliantly, but after a while the futuristic shooting gets just a bit boring.

Syndicate is a game struggling to be all things to all people and underselling its strongest points in the process. The story is a perfunctory thing, worth playing once for the robust gunplay, but it fails to make Syndicate stand out from the cyberpunk herd.

The co-op is actually very fun and leaves more room for tactics and combat variation, unlike the single-player segment. This may be enough to warrant a purchase or a rent for gamers who appreciate that type of entertainment. Those seeking a deeper experience with a richer story and generally more content will be sorely disappointed.

But the reality of a game in this class is that gamers may leave the whole thing to die, waiting for price drops or getting their fill of it over the course of a weekend rental.

EA's try to reboot the Syndicate franchise didn't succeed. Although the shooter offers some interesting ideas they are overshadowed by a feeble story and lackluster mechanics.

It's a videogame about guns that pretends to be something deeper while striving for nothing more. If you keep that in mind, and you're happy to play along, you'll get what you paid for...But you won't get anything else.

Despite lush visuals Syndicate doesn't have what it takes to compete with modern shooters. [Apr 2012, p.82]

This is a title that jumps back and forth from great to average and back again, and though it's far from perfect, it's worth experiencing.

Syndicate is a decent albeit uninspired shooter. While there are a few highlights, it mostly feels bland and homogenized from other games and cyberpunk fiction.

Syndicate offers a multi-tasking challenge that will appeal to shooting games aficionados, with brutal and overwhelming ennemies to dispatch both with skills and brains, but its poor story and average level-design have a tendency to nullify its better qualities. It's pretty, dynamic and even nicely polished in some regards, but fails to fully capture interest and immerse the player in its cyberpunk world.

It's not a bad game, but a reasonable one. There are much better proposals in the market if you're looking for science fiction.

It's good shooting, of course, pulled off with the studio's signature style, but it's come at the cost of Syndicate's imagination and ambition.

Syndicate is by no means a bad game, many of its elements work perfectly fine - the problem is that they don't work that well when combined, resulting in a grinding of the individual cogs rather than a smooth clockwork motion.

Syndicate feels like a deeply average game in a cunning, expensive disguise. Stare at the screenshots and you'll wonder how something that looks so slick can be as disappointing as it is.