Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny Critic Reviews

The Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny is a flawed, but entertaining adventure game.

I didn’t love it or hate it, and it seems to be a pretty representative example of what the adventure game genre has become -- a bunch of middling games that spend way more time on their graphics than they do in creating anything memorable or innovative.

Cards of Destiny, if you can ignore what the characters are yammering on about, provides a decent ten to fifteen hours of adventuring, and the usual dosage of nice eye candy, but it's a step backwards from City's last AG effort, Tree of Life.

If you enjoy adventure games on the PC, you could do worse than Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny. For the price, it'll provide you with a pretty lengthy and well thought-out adventure, but there are enough problems with the story's presentation to keep it from being an excellent, must-have purchase.

Unless you’re in desperate need of an old-school adventure with a serial killer theme, this is one crime you may want to leave unsolved.

Even if there are better adventures to buy, you should give this one a chance. Mostly acceptable riddles and the good graphics will entertain you for some hours.

Cards of Destiny is a good point & click game, but it fails on its fundamentals: dialogues, puzzles and graphic are a step behind the last chapter, and only its good plot saves this game.

It’s challenging and enjoyable puzzles can keep puzzle lovers happily scratching their noggins for hours. It’s just a shame that the lackluster graphics, sloppy subtitles, and annoying overacting puts a damper on this game and makes it one for hardcore point and click adventure fans only.

As it is, unfortunately the game can't maintain a proper serious tone long enough to really be engrossing, and ultimately comes off as another substandard adventure with—ironically enough, considering the country of origin—a lack of polish.

It misses the full potential but turns out being enjoyable. Check it out if you're a fan of the genre. If you can overlook poor dialogue and mediocre voice acting, there is a fun adventure game to be found.

Naïve dialogues and twice-told detective storyline build the atmosphere of a bad “B-movie”. If you’re not stranded on a deserted island with this game then you had better pick some other adventure.

This third episode of the Art of Murder series isn’t a total failure, but it doesn’t stand out from Still Life and other detective point & click games.

Point-and-click absurdity that places the order of completion before player creativity.

Adventure games are not inherently boring, and neither are murder mysteries, but all of the pointless procedure that this game throws at you will, at least as you play it, make you forget all of the enjoyment that you ever got out of either of those things.