I don't agree at all. It seems to me you hated this game BEFORE actually playing it and now your throwing as much arguments to kill it, and I believe that some of them are almost invented (not saying that you made them along, just that you may have become sometimes blinded by your hate toward the game).

"You are essentially dropped into a random city scene", "a pointless get from point A to point B game" => That's not true, each of the scenarios are really accurate "zombie genre" scenarios. For example in "No Mercy" you always see the hospital roof, it's clear from the beginning that you have to go there, even if you did not listen to the helicopter's guy shouting to go there at the beginning. On the contrary, the level design looked to me very carefully done, and logical in the player's point of view. Again in the hospital's scenario, not all the hospital looks the same, you pass through very different areas while making your way to the roof. At one moment you clearly are in what is maybe the zone where all began (rooms with "no cross lines", and "infected area" posts). And at the end you have the areas near the rooftop, which were clearly construction zones left to abandon...

"Each of the chapters are nothing more than a different area that you have to make it to rescue" => see above.

"No HDR": I think there is HDR / bloom effects (see the car lights for example), but if you think that a game needs to have HDR everywhere to have cool graphics, ...

"ten different models that they just throw at you constantly" => there are many more than just 10 different models, and it's not "constantly" at all.

"Graphic SUCKS": You need to change your glasses, mate ;-) This game has the best character animation I saw in any game I played so far. And the effects really add to the "horror look" of this game. But maybe you would have preferred it to play well only super-high graphics configurations, even to the point to be unplayable to 95% of players ?

And I wonder why you did not write anything of the fact that the game is changing every time you play it, but I suppose it contradicted your "this game SUCKS" approach, so you just forgot this ;-)

Wrong! =]

It is funny how you focus on only the single player aspect of the game. That is NOT what the game is about. The game is about working as a team, usually with your friends, to avoid death. You can become incapacitated by many zombies, which means that you can't get back up until someone comes over there and helps you. If you are all killed or knocked down, then you're screwed. This really forces you and your team to work together as much as possible, and the word co-op has never had a better meaning.

I've gotten all of this from playing the very shot Xbox 360 Demo, and I have played that demo multiple times for hours on end. And I only play with my friends.

Many people are pissed off at the AI of the zombies in the game, claiming that it is not good enough for them. I don't know if you know this, but "AI" stands for "Artificial Intelligence." Butt what you are forgetting is:
One OBVIOUS symptoms of being a zombie is complete INSANITY. If the zombies could have conversations over tea and biscuits, or put on their glasses and read the paper before work at the nearest coffee house, then it wouldn't be much of a zombie game, would it?

Next time you review a game, don't base it off of your previous exectations. And please, play the game the way it was intended to be palyed (CO-OP) before you go complaining about things that were intended to be the way you are.

Overall: Don't bitch about things you can't understand.

Another disappointed player with Left 4 Dead (360). Throughout the game I can't shake the feeling that this is a bolt on mod for HL2, yet I can't believe they are charging premium money for this title.

Graphically overall this game is ugly and lacking in most places. The textures and buildings look overly simplistic. The effects are sub standard (i.e. the fire from the molotov cocktail looks worse than many 5 year old titles). The weapons are limited and frankly dull. Furthermore, why do I still feel that I am skating around on an ice rink? The movement is truly horrible and they need to take a leaf from the book of the newer titles.

Most surprising to me was the level upon which it lacks creativity on the part of the developers. They just don't seem to have put much thought into truly epic memorable scenarios. Really, just throwing tens of zombies at you isn't going to cut it. If anyone has played the Resident Evil 5 'Japanese' demo then you will know exactly what I am talking about... now there is a co-op zombie game that is thinking of scenarios 'out of the box'. I won't spoil it for anyone but I will say that you are definitely in for a real treat – that is *exactly* how it should be done. Go play it and then see what you think...

OK, so if you are looking for a quality alternative, polished co-op experience then GoW2 campaign and horde modes are a lot of fun. Sadly, L4D looks plain amateur in comparison. To put it bluntly games have really moved on from this sort of level in terms of visuals and depth of gameplay in the last 2 or 3 years.

But what's that? I hear someone shouting that this didn't have anywhere near the dev budget of GoW2? Well, that still doesn't excuse the fact that they are charging gamers more or less the same for both titles. This is essentially what it boils down to, *Value-for-money*. This is where it is lacking.

Before anyone claims that this is all about the multiplayer replay, there's no point in playing the same scenarios over and over again with buddies if they are essentially poor in the first instance. The sooner this ends up in the budget bin the better as that's where it belongs. Any discerning gamers *really* should expect more from premium titles. But that's just my opinion...and you know what they say about opinions...

Happy New Year one and all.

From my experience a game is either really good single player and not so good multiplayer or the other way around. This game is clearly a great multiplayer game. As stated by other before it is designed for teamwork especially when playing 4 vs 4 players where the zombies are also real life players.

If however you are wanting to play this game on your own with the other 3 survivors as AI's then yes that is going to be crap. This is not Halflife 2 this is Left for Dead. The storyline is to survive and the best way to do that is with your friends.

The End.

Agree with OP, on most things. I actually thought the map quality was good, but the layout was dull. For a game claiming to have replay value, having the path exactly the same, every FUCKING time is hilarious. I've built maps for HL1 - yes, HALF-LIFE 1 - with randomized paths. For example: The first time you play Map A, the road is blocked by an overturned semi truck and you have to go through the sewer. The second time you play Map A, the sewer lid is closed but the road is cleared and you have to go down the road instead. Really damn simple to do, and by having lots of forks, they could've added a little bit of randomness and dealt with a little of the repetitiveness.

Having the molotovs and pills etc able to be in different places is a nice TOUCH, but doesn't quite qualify as good replay value in my book. The hordes spawn in at practically the same time and the same areas, and the special infected in campaign always spawn in the same places. Go run Death Toll: Map 4. You're up in the church tower. Exit. I guarantee you the trio (boomer/hunter/smoker) will spawn to your left, behind the buses. Go run Dead Air: Finale. Go to the end of the catwalk and let your teammates go ahead. Sidestep a little, as if you're going to drop down, but don't. Oops! The trio spawned behind you on the catwalk, which is IMPOSSIBLE, since that means they came from the fucking safe room. Run Dead Air: Map 2. Find the place where you're indoors, and you walk out a window over some planks, leading inside another building. Before the planks, there is a 5x5 tiny bathroom. After the planks there are two bathrooms. There are no vents or alternate entrances (holes in ceiling) to the bathrooms. Advance a bit, I guarantee you a horde will magically spawn from one of those three bathrooms, even though - THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE.

Zombies aren't MAGIC. They don't teleport in out of nowhere. That's not exciting, that's insulting that Valve thinks it's players will be fooled by shit like that - enemies spawning directly around the corner.

Another thing is the "conversations" in Left 4 Dead. They are completely unrealistic and obviously aimed at kids. Corny jokes, fart jokes, hell, even Oscar the grouch conversations! Gee, Francis, do you hate EVERYTHING? Golly! I might've thought that was funny when I was six. What's it doing in a rated M game?

If you haven't noticed any of this by now, then Left 4 Dead is probably for you.

BTW - Completely disregard how stupidly easy it is for one player to intentionally or unintentionally ruin a campaign or versus round.

Sure, the game can be fun when playing with your friends, as long as you don't play it for over an hour. But you can have fun doing anything with your friends, so that's kind of immaterial.

I definitely don't agree. Before I even played Left 4 Dead, I had the same opinion as you. I thought how can anyone pay full price for what is just another Half Life mod? I avoided it pretty much until there was a steam sale and I bought it from sheer curiosity.

However almost immediately I noticed the high production values, from the seriously spooky music and horrifying sounds, to the haunting lighting and devilish map layouts. The tension is high paced at all times, you can never really rest for a moment. The zombies keep coming, the survivors keep running and the bullets don't stop flying. The spoken dialog is always useful in knowing whats going on and you pick up little details about the characters as you play.

I feel this game has more realism than Bioshock, which totally ruined its lovely 50's feel with magical plasmids and shallow hacking minigames that were crucial to progress. Of course its not going to be 100% realistic, but thats what all those copy paste modern shooters are for. The horror movie feel is great and made all the better with film grain, level set pieces and big scary moments like when the tank shows up or a boomer spits on everyone.

When playing Versus, I genuinely feel evil plotting the demise of the survivors with my fellow infected team, taking advantage of the terrain where survivors fear to tread. Watching your hunter ripping into a survivor is sure nasty especially picking off the weak and those who fall behind. Its not often you get the chance to feel evil in a multiplayer game, so this is pretty unique to L4D.

Maybe I just have a hankering for the games of old which would just throw you into the thick of the gameplay and force you to learn fast on the fly. I agree it has an "arcade" feel to it like Painkiller or Quake 3,with so few weapons to master and few abilities to use, plus it never takes itself too seriously. However, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes than is first apparent, like the director manipulating the number of enemies you face and random spawns that help/hinder. You really don't see much variety in most FPS these days so even a little bit of randomisation is great. L4D2 and L4D are some of the most played games on steam so I'm sure it's not just me who's addicted!

When you first say that it's not scary enough, you don't realize that it's not intended to make you shit your pants. They never intended it to be that scary and the music, sound, and level design were only intended to create the kind of atmosphere that you might see in a zombie movie.

Also you say that the zombies stand stupidly around, well yeah they would do that if they haven't seen you yet. Becoming a zombie doesn't give you incredibly sensitive hearing or the ability to see through walls, they aren't going to be waiting for you around the next corner.

Have you played it on harder difficulties than easy? What I'm noticing is that you seem to have no trouble WHATSOEVER when you're playing and that it's too easy. I guess it would be though considering that's the only mode you play it on.

Just because you want to hear the word Fuck every minute doesn't mean that other people will. You said that the dialogue is garbage because "it's just jokes aimed at kids, with swear words." It seems as if you're judging the game on how much language it has. The game was aimed for most audiences but they likely kept the language down so that it wouldn't sway a parent's decision if their child was going to buy the game.

Some of you say that the AI and graphics sucked. Well consider this: 1. In the game there are large numbers of NPCs with some of the most complex Pathfinding AI's out there.
2. The number zombies in the screen at a time and that the models or textures don't look blocky or extremely low-res even with large numbers of them.
3. The Survivors have fairly hi-res models and textures and the animations on both them and the zombies look good.
4. I've used the console to turn up the number of zombies in a horde to over 300 yet it still ran well with hundreds of zombies on the screen at a time, yet is was incredibly difficult to play with that many zombies for those of you that say there are too few zombies.

Finally there's you folks that loved TF2 but were disappointed with L4D. The graphics are BETTER in L4D. It's the ART DIRECTION that's what makes TF2 look so unique. You are confusing art style with graphics which to me is kinda sad. Anyways I hope my ranting has gotten through to some of you. Have a nice day.