Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

This isn't the Rainbow Six we wanted, dropping the usual story campaign in favor of a complete focus on the multiplayer experience even if bots support is a welcome addition. But thanks to the many tactical options and the full destruction simulation, It offers an incredibly high variety level with tense gaming sessions, as long as you've got a good group of players to play with.

A clever and compelling multiplayer offering that transplants the meticulous planning of classic Rainbow Six into a modern shooter - but concerns about its long-term prospects persist. [Feb 2016, p.75]

Rainbow Six: Siege may give the impression of being a work in progress still but it nevertheless delivers a tense tactical experience for those of you who will manage to play it with friends willing to participate in solid teamwork.

Rainbow Six: Siege offers an experience totally focused on multiplayer and returns to the fundamentals of the series, based on the strategy and tactics.

When playing this game in a team it is one of the best online shooters of 2015, even though it has some bugs and not a lot of content. If you'd rather play alone, you might not like Rainbow Six Siege as much.

Tactics, action and working together are the pillars of Rainbow Six Siege. Attacking and defending bring endless online fun, especially when you play with people you know in a team. If not, the bugs might make your game somewhat annoying.

Rainbow Siege Six fluctuates a bit more towards action and spectacular battles, but without completely abandoning the need for a strategic approach. It surely won't disappoint the fans of tactical shooters.

Few modern shooters can match the heart-pounding exhilaration and immense strategic depth Siege achieves with its asymmetrical PvP.

Rainbow Six Siege is a nice return for the series, but know about its caveats before diving in. This is a team game. Communication is necessary, and it is not a twitch shooter. If those things sound appealing, then Siege is definitely worth the time.

Rainbow Six Siege has a lot going for it when it comes to the long haul. While three modes doesn't sound like a lot, the sheer volume of variables involved will result in an experience that constantly stays fresh, even with the current pool of 11 maps. While a few other major shooters have let me down this year, I think Siege is one of the games I'll be playing the most going forward.

Rainbow Six: Siege lacks an offline mode, story and bots, but online it is a tactical masterpiece with diverse gameplay, dynamic matches, interesting weapons and maps, and, at times, truly fantastic cooperative action through teamwork and communication.

Despite the barbed wire and reinforced walls that Rainbow Six Siege makes you walk through in order to get to the meat of the gameplay, I can’t stop thinking about how much fun that gameplay is.

Rainbow Six Siege is a fantastic game at its core. The controls are tight, the action is a perfect mix of exciting and thoughtful, and there’s lots of interesting new ideas that should be praised. But the lack of content and shameless business practices hold it back from greatness.

What Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege lacks in content it makes up for in intense, fast-paced, heart-pounding action and tight gameplay. If tactical multiplayer is your thing, there may be none better. If not, though, you’ll likely find the experience to be a bit bare bones.

Tense, dramatic and unique, Rainbow Six: Siege feels and plays unlike any other shooter on the market. It’s not perfect but it can be great fun. We just wish there was more of it.

As intricate as the multiplayer is, the lack of a true campaign or other content beyond terrorist hunt leaves the entire Rainbow Six Siege package of offerings feeling somewhat light, especially in comparison to something like Call of Duty: Black Ops III, which has a campaign and zombies to go along with its signature shooter experience.

When it all comes together, Rainbow Six Siege offers some of the best multiplayer action you'll experience this generation, but the anaemic content and lack of a cohesive single player campaign mar what should be one of this year's best shooters.

Fans of the well-crafted, single-player campaigns of previous Rainbow Six games will find nothing of value in Siege. The short tutorial missions lack replay value, and the popular Terrorist Hunt mode, which can be played with up to five friends, gives players little options other than ramping up the difficulty. Locking players out of selecting the map they want to play on is a curious decision, as are many of the battle tactics you see the enemy A.I. employ.

Underneath the silly cash grab lies a genuinely fun multiplayer game. Siege took me back to the early days of Counter-Strike, when I would lose weeks at a time to endless late night sessions with friends. Find some buddies and Siege really settles in as thrilling game of calculated chaos. But between the paltry offline offerings and the slow, microtransaction-gated drip of goodies, I wouldn’t advise breaching this door alone.

Rainbow Six: Siege is an intelligent and quality shooter that allows for varied approaches. It is, however, unfortunately held back by repetition, server issues and a noticeable lack of variety. Fans of the genre should definitely look into it, and be mindful of the fact that lots of free DLC is planned, but not everyone will fall in love with its design.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege is a very attractive game that clearly had some effort put into the visuals. Beyond that, the title offers more tactical gameplay than most shooters on the market. The biggest sin that the game commits is that it just offers so little overall content.

The bizarre progression hooks Siege borrows from free-to-play games, its dearth of content and its network problems make for an awful lot of frustration to overcome in search of those rare moments of unit cohesion.