If you were to sit down, get out a pen and write down a list of phrases or expressions, a few obvious choices would inevitably crop up almost instantly. Never judge a book by its cover, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, when a door closes a window opens; all the usual gibberish that is thrown around on a regular basis. However, sometimes a generic saying is perfect to convey the point someone is attempting to get across. In this instance, for us, we’re wheeling back out the old classic ‘it’s a case of style over substance’!

From the moment Lynch busts Kane out from his imprisonment, it’s easy to see what angle IO Interactive was going for in Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The two leads talk to each other like the main characters from a Michael Mann movie, each cut-scene is effortlessly cool and the constant in-your-face attitude makes you feel like a badass from start to finish. Unfortunately, what lies beneath the surface isn’t all that rewarding.

Where Dead Men excels is with the scenarios it puts you in. You can look forward to breaking into banks, busting prisoners out of cell blocks and shooting your way through a packed Tokyo nightclub – all are as modish as you think they would be. What isn’t as exciting is that IO has failed to deliver when it comes to actually playing through the damn thing. Take the bank job, for example. Rather than constantly feeling on-edge, worried that your well-constructed plan could fall apart at any second, you’ll just shoot through the security that blocks your path until the level draws to a close. Not once did we put our controller down, take a sigh of relief after a truly exhilarating ride, unbelievably pumped about where our adventure would take us next. Instead, Kane & Lynch almost falls into by-thenumbers territory where different locals and goals have little-to-no bearing; the core of what’s on offer is rather bland. It also doesn’t help that when the two badasses reach the last third of their spree, events take a seriously poor turn. Although only slight, the game’s individuality and personality that had been built up beforehand is thrown out the window in favour of a shoot- ’em-all fest that becomes extremely repetitive very quickly. A solid, tense finish this isn’t!

Our biggest disappointment, mind you, was with the squad-based combat that we had been anticipating for quite some time. Being built on the Freedom Fighters engine means the two do have similarities, but Kane & Lynch does next to nothing to push or advance it. We can’t fault its simplicity – which means from the word go you can use it effectively – but we suspect the general public (and that’s you by the way) will either completely ignore it or employ it sparingly and the system never imposes itself on the game enough.

Finally, simply because we like to kick things when they’re down, the visuals just aren’t up to scratch. You can shout and scream until you’re blue in the face that graphics don’t matter, but you’d be wrong, especially on a console where HD is being pushed as king. A small part of us thinks if the original Xbox hadn’t met such an untimely demise, Dead Men, in terms of its aesthetics, could have been released for it. Granted some sections – like the amount of partygoers rammed into the Japanese club – are without doubt impressive, but these moments are the exception rather than the rule and overall the end results are poor.

Mind you, someone with a spare few hours on their hands could do far, far worse than sit down with the criminal duo. The shooting mechanic is basic, but sufficiently satisfying that you can get a kick out of popping numerous foes in the head and the story genuinely raises some interesting questions. Kane and Lynch are definitely evil pieces of crap, but the line isn’t so black and white throughout. Call us horrific, scandalous, evil, disturbed sickos, but there’s a good chance you may even relate to what Kane has to go through… despite the amount of individuals that fall by his hand.

It’s disappointing that Kane & Lynch didn’t turn out in the way we had hoped, and on the whole the experience is rather underwhelming and flat. The total package never comes together even though at times, it comes very close. There’s certainly nothing horrendous here, but a little more oomph would’ve certainly been nice. A real shame.

Simon Miller