To get it out of the way immediately, this game is a pretty blatant Gears of War clone. Controls, gameplay, graphics, they're all quite close to the Gears of War way of doing things.

Graphically, the game holds up surprisingly well in most cases. Much better than I expected, really. Textures are, in most cases, quite good. Models are pretty impressive on most of the characters, Facial detail is quite nice.

The title does support hardware PhysX, which I was kind of surprised to see for such a quietly released game. Don't expect insane over-the-top effects though, The only place I saw where it was clear that hardware was being used was in a small water section.

Controls work quite well, my only real complaint is that blind-firing isn't as controllable as I'd like. Ordering the AI team-mates around is simple (when they decide to listen to the command). There are a few cases of "over-animation" where you feel like you're not in control of the character, but those are very rare, in fact, completely limited to a single boss fight, I believe.

The Story in The Scourge Project is somewhat cliche, but much better than I would have expected. I hate reviews that post spoilers for the sake of elaboration, so I'll avoid commenting on anything that happens after the first few minutes. The jist of the story in Episodes 1 & 2 is that, as "Echo Squad" you're betrayed by "Alpha Squad" upon arrival at a Nogari installation for a mission. I'm actually curious to find out what happens in further episodes of the game, if they actually get made.

I played solo, so I can't comment on the functionality of the co-op, though I assume it would be much more of a joy than wrestling the single player AI team-mates. This isn't to say that the AI is horrible. For most of the campaign, they function rather well. When things get hectic however, they seem to get confused, and end up standing around a little more than would be considered ideal.

Overall, it's a relatively solid title, much better than expected, given the relative stealth launch. I'd say it's a good way to waste a few bucks, and kill a weekend. Hopefully we get the chance to see more of the story before too long.

I downloaded this game because it resembles Left-4-Dead, and just like L4D, there are 4 players which can be played solo or coop. On solo mode the other players becomes AI controlled. And just like L4D, there are 3 male and 1 female character. Although this game has unique features compared to L4D such as XP, special abilities unique to each players and unique story on each characters to name a few, it is far from being like L4D when it comes to cinematic effect, sadly, the game fell a bit short when it comes to cinematic impact.

The graphics is indeed great as expected for using Unreal 3D Engine. It can even utilize hardware based physics which makes the environment a bit more 'alive'. I'd give the graphics a 5/5 rating.

The sound is good, except I don't like the way they made all the conversation as though it always comes from radio even though the person speaking is already beside you. In fact, even your own character sounds like it is coming from a radio, for that I give the sound a 3/5 rating

The story is somehow intriguing, so I'll give the story a 5/5 rating. I couldn't mention anything about the story as I might risk spoiling it.

Don't miss the part that this game is '3rd person shooter' and not FPS, although most likely someone will be able to modify that with a simple patch. Being a 3rd person shooter, sometimes it is a bit confusing specially if you are used to playing FPS-type games. It sometimes feel like your mouse is lagging when in fact it is just because of the 3rd person mode and not because of hardware (or software) problem.

Overall, I gave this game a 4/5 rating because of the issues that I have enumerated. This is one of those games that I am not recommending outright without properly knowing what you will get. If you are a fan of 3rd person shooter which is a bit like RPG, or you love playing coop with friends, you should probably try this. But if you think this is like L4D, or you are more comfortable with FPS than 3rd person shooter, you might want to reconsider.