Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 83 Ratings

  • Summary: Call of Juarez: The Cartel is the third game from the Call of Juarez series.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 12
  2. Negative: 6 out of 12
  1. Sep 9, 2011
    57
    If Techland would have called this one "Stupid shooter with pathetic characters full of cliché", it would have been less of a disappointment.
  2. Sep 15, 2011
    55
    Call of Juarez: The Cartel proves that good ideas mean little when they don't have a solid foundation to support them.
  3. Sep 9, 2011
    55
    The PC version of Call of Juarez: The Cartel is still a game that should be worked on for a couple more months. Some strange and unprofessional gameplay solutions and technical issues can surprise many Techland fans. We got used to the fact that this Polish developer makes some mistakes because they are hard to avoid with more and more complicated games. This does not explain, however, why The Cartel is so mediocre - the entire Call of Juarez franchise suffers from it.
  4. Sep 16, 2011
    45
    A poor change of pace for the franchise. Taking the story into modern times seems to have robbed it of its passion and charm, replacing it with asinine characters and more cuss words than an Al Pacino flick.

See all 12 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 16
  2. Negative: 14 out of 16
  1. MB_
    6
    Maddeningly frustrating. Fundamentally flawed. Idiotic. However for a co-op game its well worth buying if it's on the cheapo. The concept of a co-op game where people are working against each other is the idiotic. The frustrating is the simple things like picking up your fallen team mates animates you from cover into the line of fire, putting you on the same dirt your friend was just on. As for the fundamentally flawed. Well a game where you have to search around looking for items but on rails so narrow the game resets if you explore too far.... a child could explain the problem with that. That all said, it looks pretty cool. Driving is fun. It all works [had to grenade my team mates a couple of times to reset a stuck room entry] and functionally is almost up to a Valve game. But things like constant in game phone calls, texts and slow cross hair switching, the depth of field focusing far too slowly and usually onto something invisible right in front of you. Oooh it's so infuriating, there's a good game here. Under the stupid. Dig deep tho! Expand
  2. Game is poor in comparison with the other two games in the series. The plot wasn't too bad and the choice of endings was kind of neat. In my view, the downside were as follows: (1) repetitive scenery--how many times do you go through the same building? (2) repetitve comments by the AI characters in the single player mode--how many times can you remind your partner that you are saving his a__? (3) too many chase scenes. These are ok for some, but I found them annoying. Overall, I suggest you save your money for another game. Expand
  3. This game fails at everything, it fails to represent whats really going on in the drug cartels, the casualties, the sex trafficking, (mexican's kidnapping American women? No, thats stupid, really risky and not nearly as profitable.. they are bringing Mexican women into American to sell as sex slaves), the blatant racist violence, level where you kill nothing but black men because... they live in a slum neighborhood and you're trying to start a turf war to destabilize the gangs? Yeah I suppose that could work
    BUT ITS RACIST.
    A achievement to kill as many black guys as possible in that level.
    It gets facts wrong like the phrase "Gold or lead".. thats not the real phrase, it's actually Silver or Lead and was coined by Escobar.
    The games about 3-4 hours and even that felt painfully long. Terrible controls, AI are stupid, they don't even know how to drive cars and the guns feel flimsy pee-shooters. The games design is for coop so all the good guns are now allowed for us singleplayers, not that I care enough to be angry.
    It's linearity wouldn't be an issue if it could back it up with a stellar narrative, but it's got a paper thin storyline with very weak justification for every new intel you find. Characters are stereotypical that you really care nothing for.

    Its probably one of the worst designed, short, boring, and misinformed games I've ever played.
    Why in the 7 hells does it have Call of Juarez in the title, I'll never figure out.
    Expand
  4. This game is so bad, I don't know where to begin. Terrible controls, graphics, AI, gun-feeling. It's on-rails, has gray pixellated dots for you to follow (as if you can get lost in the first place, it is completely linear). Stereotypical, boring characters. Just stay away... what a waste of a great franchise. Expand

See all 16 User Reviews