Hellgate: London Critic Reviews

It doesn't redefine the action RPG, but in a genre laden with derivative games, Hellgate is a refreshing concoction that's likely to have enduring appeal.

Hellgate: London presents a wonderful story set against an artfully designed world but never goes that extra mile to separate it from the masses.

What Hellgate does, it does well – few games have core gameplay this strong. However, it doesn’t venture far outside of the scope of filling an XP bar or finding that next upgrade. The story isn’t much more than a thin excuse to kill demons, and the truly memorable encounters are few and far between. If you like faster-paced combat than you’ll find in the rest of the MMO genre, though, this could be a great fit.

Hellgate: London takes the elements that made the Diablo series classic, and puts them in new, invigorating setting of demonic threat, dark magic and high technology. The fresh world of Hellgate: London is its greatest asset, but sadly the game fails in capitalizing it properly, with quite shoddy plot and generic missions outside the main story. Nevertheless, Hellgate: London is a good action RPG with plenty to enjoy. How the multiplayer system works when the game hits stores will ultimately determine the staying power of the game.

It’s no "Diablo 2," yet, but give it time and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by just how much is on offer here. And hey, if nothing else you get to pretend that the demons are Christmas shoppers, which makes slaughtering them just that little bit more fun.

Hellgate: London arrives as an addictive and highly replayable action RPG.

Hellgate is like the first Diablo, just in 3D. If you can live with it's weaknesses and bugs, you will enjoy the usual hunt after better items. But, being done by former Blizzard developers, it could have - and should have - been better.

I enjoyed Hellgate immensely. You have a ton of items to find, lots of fun monsters to kill in the randomized levels and fun bosses to face off with. If you're looking to scratch that pack-rat itch and can put up with the bugs, I'd highly recommend Hellgate.

If Hellgate: London had appeared on shelves with no hype and no known links to past gaming glories then we'd probably be sat here at the end of the review chatting about how it was a bit of an undiscovered gem that fused FPS sensibilities with Diablo-esque loot collection and character customisation to provide a thoroughly enjoyable, if slightly unpolished, experience. Unfortunately we don't have that luxury and the game's high profile throws niggles like the repetitive level design, the often dull quests and the stability issues into harsh relief.

Hellgate: London is definitely worth the price of admission for the single-player mode, but it would be an incredible bargain if the online mode was of similar quality.

Sure Hellgate: London has many features that are found in the Diablo series but they have not made a Diablo clone. The games could be called kissing cousins but for all its downsides, HG:L can be an addicting experience.

Hellgate's done itself a disservice, because it's hidden some decent fun underneath a dated, linear and difficult-to-love veneer.

Item fiends and "Diablo II" fans will love the complex loot system but most of us will be bored senseless after just a few hours.

Hellgate: London hooked me, and I think it'll do the same to a lot of other players. But no matter how much I adore its juicy roleplaying sub-systems, I can't get past its wobbly core game.

The game controls easily on the movement front, but breaking in action to press a random button can cause some frustration.

A disappointment. Unfinished, unpolished, monotonous and offering poor value for money with the subscription scheme. Yet it kind of grows on you over time.

Hellgate: London is filled with gorgeous artwork and dripping with atmosphere; it's got a delicious sense of humour and finely tuned combat systems that will be keeping action RPG nuts happy for a long time. Despite this, we've got vast reservations about key aspects of the game; the randomly generated levels feel increasingly hollow, pointless and gimmicky as you progress, the user interface is clunky in some important areas, and there are clearly some hefty bugs here that need patching.

With all its features and the charm from its wicked sense of humor, Hellgate makes for a very entertaining game, but it needs more depth.

Flagship, despite whatever mistakes it's made with Hellgate, still taps into that addicted-to-loot gland in my cranium, and I am willing to put up with its flaws. It's now a matter of whether you want to put up with its somewhat unpolished nature at the moment, or wait until Flagship possibly smoothes out the warts that its little demon is showing.

Hellgate: London has plenty of neat ideas, but many of them aren't executed as well as you'd like.