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Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 606 Ratings

  • Summary: Sleeping Dogs is an open world cop drama set in the vibrant city of Hong Kong. Taking the role of undercover cop Wei Shen, players must take down one of the world's most lethal criminal organizations from the inside. Featuring imaginative combat systems, Sleeping Dogs empowers enables players to perform an array of martial arts moves, singlehandedly taking on numerous opponents. Players perform visceral kicks and combos, vicious counters and a cinematic set of environmental takedowns making use of real-world items from circular saws to phone booths, incinerators to refrigerator doors. Collapse
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 23
  2. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. Aug 23, 2012
    95
    Sleeping Dogs provides players with an engrossing narrative set to the atmospheric and richly-detailed backdrop of Hong Kong. An extensive array of additional missions and activities ensure there are always opportunities for further adventure and action to discover while roaming the streets. Along with an impressive presentation for both the visuals and music, Sleeping Dogs is without doubt the sleeper hit of this year for open world action games.
  2. Sep 5, 2012
    93
    Calling Sleeping Dogs something like an "open-world crime" game does it a disservice, as it invokes thoughts of simply shooting and carjacking yet another major metropolis. Sleeping Dogs is a more refined take on how an open-world game can play out, sacrificing the over-the-top content for a much more focused experience. The game does cut loose, and the melee combat is certainly a blast. Ultimately, Sleeping Dogs manages to marry open-world gameplay with an extremely engaging plot.
  3. Sep 6, 2012
    74
    A messy story and horrible characters get in the way of decent, violent action in a scintillating open city.

See all 23 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 15 out of 140
  1. Wow, what a game! If you love open world games with excellent storytelling, amazing melee combat, great gun-play, and white knuckled driving sequences...look no further. I was a fan of the True Crime series, but this is the evolution I wanted to see in these games. Taking the best parts of other similar games, United Front has really made it their own and an absolutely polished gem. The graphics (full out) on PC are breathtaking and the amount of detail in the world, and the speed at which this detail can go rushing by, is a sight to behold.

    I was addicted from the moment it started and spent every spare moment playing the game until the intense and satisfying conclusion. A graphical feast with truly lifelike audio, excellent acting, and a strong storyline made me care about the characters in the game like few others. United Front thought of everything to make the game a challenge yet never one moment of tedious gameplay like these style of games can fall into.

    Stupendous accomplishment. High praise to Square Enix for recognizing the amazing vision of United Front and I look forward to future offerings.
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  2. I like supporting games like these, exploring the culture and feel of Asia. Games are typically about Europe/USA. Despite this, Sleeping Dogs is a great game, really good action, and it has characters you actually care about. I do feel that the game was too short and needed more content. I don't particularly like DLCs in general but I realize that's the trend nowadays.

    The game does has some issues that most of these types of games have, that is, the driving can be clunky, especially on lower end PCs. There are random bugs/glitches and finding things can be downright annoying. But overall, the story and graphics are amazing, the chasing and fighting is really good. Some people are disappointed about the lack of shooting but it IS Hong Kong; guns are very much illegal for the average citizen, so guns would not be plentiful. Plus, physically punching, kicking people is more visceral and entertaining at times.

    I would say check this game out, I would (arguably) say that it is not worth buying at full price (I got this game for 18.75$, 50% off and an amazon coupon code), but there is a sale on it on Steam right now.

    TL; DR? its GTA in Hong Kong, it has fun fighting, the story and graphics are good, even with a few hiccups along the way, its short but has DLCs and most likely more to come.
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  3. The game itself is fantastic. For the first time in a long time I enjoy the story line. Sadly once again company's let themselves down when they shaft the PC gamers with poor console ports. Problems with settings and controller issues make the initial release very frustrating. Most issues have been fixed now but company's cant keep getting away with releasing buggy games and expecting the community to fix it. 9 if the game was working from the start Expand
  4. Just got this game and it crashes at startup. This seems to be a relatively common problem at the moment, so I'd recommend holding off buying this for now. I'll change the score when I can actually play the game, and also give an actual review. Expand

See all 140 User Reviews