I went into this game very skeptical thinking it was going to be incredibly generic and terrible but I was pleasantly surprised. I actually thought this game was a lot of fun and really well made. It has these applications you can use to influence the actions of the enemies which makes the game stand out and keeps it from getting generic. Combining your moves works together really well and creates a very satisfying experience. Often times games will throw a bunch of mechanics at you that never really mesh together and this wasn't the case. It has a feature that's a bit like a combination of the drug in Haze and the slowdown effect in Timeshift. However this just felt better. Timing it out to perfectly use with your other abilities was a much more satisfying experience that actually made you use some brain power. It wasn't simply activate power, shoot everyone, move through level. It allowed some creative freedom which kept the gameplay fresh throughout.

I thought the shooting felt clunky at first but after a level or two you really get the hang of it. By the end I felt the shooting felt great. The guns have a real weight to them and the sound design is on point. The guns are a blast to use, notably the mini gun, guass rifle, and laser cannon that I forget the name of. The tone of the game is very dark with plenty of suicide, executions, and civilians being murdered in cold blood which contrasts the bright, cyberpunk aesthetic of this particular dystopia. I thought the world was very cool and reminded me a lot of things like Bladerunner or The Fifth Element. However, the more I played it the more it reminded me of every other sci fi movie ever and started to feel a bit generic. The story is a bit paper thin with the lore of the world being fleshed out through collectibles. The game features the likeness and voice acting of Rosario Dawson and Brian Cox who are both great in this. I feel like the graphics, notably the character designs, hold up really well and probably are a bit better than par for it's time. The textures of the environments like the floors and walls were the only thing that were noticeably bad.

The game is rather short and I finished it in two sessions. I might have played it for a total of 7 hours. I have no complaints with the gameplay but a longer maybe more challenging experience would have been a bit more satisfying. I played it on the hardest difficulty and there was only one boss section at the very end that ever gave me any real difficulties. Overall I thought this game had a great feel to it, the gunplay was fun, it's gimmicks and mechanics never got old, and I liked the world and lore. I just wish there was more of it. Perhaps the online experience would bump this game up a bit but I'm not sure if it even still exists and I'm not going to bother with in in 2020. I'm sure it's dead. Syndicate is a solid game that deserved more recognition.