That's the first time I've ever gotten a disclaimer in a video game that I can recall. Make of it what you will.

I'm not sure what to say about this game. It has a lot of elements to like on the face of it. It's a Mature-rated title that earns the rating with a good bit of swearing and violence, which I think is better than something wishy-washy that's barely M due to some technicality. If you're going to get the rating, go all the way, I say.

It has a variety of methods for engaging in mayhem, be it vehicular homicide, armed melee combat, gunfire, or unarmed combat in several styles (you start with one, and can learn four more). It has a maverick-cop style of main character, along with other characters, situations, and cinematics that make you feel like you're playing a part in an R-rated action movie. You can try to be a good cop, do things by the book, etc., or you can be the bad cop, taking bribes, pawning evidence instead of turning it in, killing unarmed perps, or killing innocents caught in the crossfire. Once a gangster, now a police detective of the NYPD, main character Marcus Reed has the potential and ability to go down either road, or mix it up a bit. The game includes mission-based play and free-roaming patrols where you can respond to calls on various crimes, or ignore them as you like.

Other likable elements include destructible environments, such as the building the introductory scene/tutorial runs you through as you dual-wield a pair of submachine guns, engaging in some gangster-style vengeance against some cretins who betrayed you (I wasn't real clear on what had happened, but it seemed to be something like that) . The advanced tricks you can learn with increased rank are interesting (you go up in police rank as you solve crimes and bust baddies, which opens up various things).

When behind the wheel, you can turn on a dime with Insta-Turn, or pop a Side-Wheelie. Gun tricks include Precision Aim (increased zoom) and Slo-Mo Gun Dives at different levels. Need some more wheels or hardware? Head over to the police armory or garage for sanctioned vehicles and weaponry, or go out in the city and hunt down deals at gun shops or car dealerships. If you're injured, head back to base or buy some food and drinks. Want to learn a new martial arts style? Head to a dojo for some training (provided they're open). Clean up crime in different precincts and observe the effects of your efforts as the crime rate in the area goes down, or ignore it and cruise the streets listening to some favorite tunes from the hip-hop-heavy soundtrack (no custom soundtrack option from what I could tell, unfortunately).

It sounds good on the surface, doesn't it? I wish that were the whole story. I wish I could just say that this game rocks, go out and buy it for a cool, action-movie experience. I can't, though, much as I would like to.

This is the best game I ever hated. That's one way to put it, anyway. It has great ideas, cool presentation, brings some good things to the genre, and provides a different perspective from some games (cop rather than all-out criminal) that I found to be a good idea. But it fails on implementation, in a big way. Playing this game, for me, is like biting into a cake mixed up and placed in the oven by a skilled baker, that turns out to have been left in the oven for too short a time. It tastes underdone. Sure, even the dough can be tasty sometimes, but it's nothing compared to what the final result might have been, if it were fully done and ready. Too many releases these days are getting pushed out before they are ready, and that can be a big problem. It can be an even bigger problem when it's a console game that can't be patched. It's one thing to push out a buggy release on the PC, but they really should have known better. Maybe it couldn't be helped, I don't know, I just think it's a real shame. This game could have been great, but the problems drag it down considerably, to the point where it's just another buggy, frustrating experience.

The first thing I noticed was that the default volume for the voice acting was much too quiet compared to everything else. I cranked up the voice volume setting to maximum, lowered the others a bit, and plugged in my headphones, but it was still a problem even after doing so. Turning on subtitles turned out to be a good idea, all things considered, so I'm glad the option to do so was present.

Then, after the action-packed opening cinematic was over and the tutorial was up and running, I noticed some stuttering or slowdown in the frame rate as I encountered my first enemies. "Hmm, maybe it's an isolated occurrence," I thought to myself. No such luck. It's even worse when you're behind the wheel of a car, and having it happen when you're trying to maneuver the rather touchy automobiles at high speed means you'll be crashing into other cars and other obstacles, or mowing down innocent pedestrians and scoring yourself some bad-cop points (in fact, a good portion of my bad-cop points came from accidental deaths rather than anything intentional). Add this to the fact that it's too dark most of the time, and there was no gamma/brightness control in the options that I could find, so you'll have to turn it up via your TV set or monitor, if it bothers you as it did me. That means those accidental slayings and crashes are even harder to avoid.

It doesn't help matters when the in-game options/controls display readout misinforms you about the controls. The actions related to the X and B buttons on the Xbox controller appear to be reversed from what it tells you, but fortunately the tutorial text and the manual appear to be correct in this regard. I can't believe that something as simple as this was overlooked, though.

This is more of a design quibble, but I did not like the endurance gauge game-mechanic in this, it was very annoying in play, though it sounds realistic and all that on paper. It really detracts from a fight scene, and from the action-movie vibe that this game is clearly going for, to have the main character stop in mid-fight, gasping for breath with his hands on his knees.

Then the skills that you purchase don't seem to show up in a list anywhere in your status display, I think you just need to remember that you have them.

Making arrests can be a clumsy process as well. Sometimes it's quick and easy, with the criminal giving up when caught, allowing you to simply hit the B button and put them away in cuffs without a fuss. Other times, even when they have given up, the B routine doesn't work, and you have to grab and release them a few times to make it work (this happened to me in the police tutorial sequence). And frequently you will be forced to beat them into submission before they can be cuffed. To an extent, I have no problem with that, but it gets silly at times, when the perp is clearly unarmed, outmatched in every way, you have a gun, etc., and you still have to beat them down. This is the case sometimes even when the perp has clearly given up, and is not fighting back. This can also result in many escapes, as groups of crooks run off while you're attempting to soften one up to the point where you can make an arrest. To make it more aggravating, when you're inside a building, and someone you're trying to arrest simply steps outside (or, as in more than one instance, is bounced outside while in the process of getting beaten) and is considered to have escaped from you. I guess chasing them is too much effort.

Another annoyance is that if you ditch your car at some point (or if it explodes, say) and then recall it at the police garage, it will pop back up in exactly the same condition it was left in, without being repaired at all. Rather negligent of those police mechanics, I'd say. In fact, I couldn't find a way to get repairs at the police HQ at all. I noticed that a wrench icon shows up in your mini-map as you are driving around in the city, indicating a civilian garage you can go to, but these don't show up in the main map display. They're also hideously expensive, and it's easy to get into the situation early on where you have one police car, and it's fully damaged, with unaffordable repairs. I tried heading right back into the HQ after leaving with the car, and respawning it in the garage; no dice, it was still completely damaged.

Some of the glitches can be humorous: I pulled over a car to commandeer it, but decided not to get in, so the driver got back in and drove off…while remaining in a standing position after getting behind the wheel once more. The sight of the civilian sticking through the roof of his car as he zoomed off indignantly was pretty amusing. The way some of the civilians continue cowering, screaming, and scuttling around crouched- even after the criminals threatening them are neutralized - can be funny as well, but it gets old.

Going on patrol and doing some free-roaming crime-busting can be fun, but it gets annoying considering how frequent the calls are. I was in an area that was supposedly at a medium crime rate, for example, but the calls kept coming in one after the other, with very little pause in between, and I was forced to ignore numerous calls simply to try and get to a destination, such as a plot-related meeting or just heading back to the precinct to turn in some evidence and collect my pay. It didn't feel right to have to do that, but I was not given much choice.

I could go on, but I think most will have gotten the point by now. This is not a finished product. It needed more development time, more polishing, more playtesting, etc., before going on the shelves. Some people will be more able and willing to slog through the shoddy portions of the game while enjoying the good aspects. I am not one of those people. I would not recommend a purchase until you first try it out for yourself, such as via a rental, to determine whether or not you can ignore the numerous failings, and to decide what it's really worth to you.

This game could have been great, as I said. If all of its features had been implemented well, and it were tested and polished up to a greater degree, then I'd recommend it without hesitation, and it would have a place on my gaming shelf for a long time. A great game in principle or theory, but not in practice, due to a very flawed execution.