I don't know if it's the "Ubisoft effect", but this game is actually very cheap in France because it seems a lot of people bought it at the time. Everytime I see a PS2 for sale, it has XIII as one of the 4/5 games accompaning it.

I never heard of XIII before buying it for 2€ and playing it. It was way better than I'd thought. The game's all in pace. You move fast, you shoot fast, and the art direction + sound design gives you clear feedbacks as for when an enemy dies.

The game loves diversity : infiltrations sequences, timed sequences, plateform sequances, tower defense sequences, light puzzles sequences... You never got bored with XIII. You might instead get frustrated during very few moments, when the game's a bit tough or when something isn't clearly indicated and your softlocked but these kind of moments are rare.

I must point out the quality of level design. The notable exception is the last infiltration sequence which is... Absolutely awful. This game moment aside, there are so much ideas in XIII's levels that you might want to replay it. Guns distribution through levels is great, challenges and objectives are diversified. I must specificaly point out the surgeons' lair, the canyon and the church as the best levels in the game.

P.S: The OST is certainly one of the best ever integrated gameplay-wise to an action game.