Recent reviews by [SHIGU] Taco Hanger

Spec Ops: The Line really wants to be the gaming industry's Apocalypse Now or Heart of Darkness. The developers want to give the player an unflinching look at the horrors and murky, moral grayness of modern warfare. It's a subject that few developers want to tackle. It's not fun or empowering, but it's honest and thought-provoking. Few games have brought the subject fully to the player's attention while film has examined the futility of warfare several times over. Spec-Ops wants to bring that same message, spoken through a game, in a genre that is overrun with games that want to make you feel like Rambo in First Blood or Dutch in Predator. And while Spec-Ops's story certainly invokes a lot of emotion, it feels like one of those games that would rather be a movie.
The gameplay is boiled down to moving from Point A to Point B while killing wave after wave of blank-faced enemies. There are one of two deviations from this formula, but player agency is reduced to walking down linear hallways, hiding behind cover, and killing anyone that isn't in your squad. That's all you'll ever be doing in a story that, although provocative, lacks in-depth characters and a plot worth following. Everything else, from the out-dated graphics to the clunky controls, is disappointingly sub-par. Spec-Ops: The Line rests alongside the Gears of War series and Uncharted series as games with little to no merit, better watched than played.

In the end, it made me laugh, cry, appreciate my loved ones more, and want to be a better person.

This game has the works: The music is catchy, the characters are memorable, the writing is humorous, and the gameplay (a mixture of rpg and platformer elements) is superb and unique. It's refreshing and I absolutely loved it.