This is a very enjoyable and welcome addition to the second "Summer of Arcade". But as with most XBLA games, it has its drawbacks. Pros: -Blitz mode is a blast to play with friends. -The different classes are each very fun to play. -Crossfire mode is unique and an incredibly fun game mode to play. -Customizable classes add even more depth to the game. -There is a great emphasis on strategy.
-The controls are excellent.
-Shooting "Bullseye, the Monday Night Combat Mascot" never gets old.

Cons:
-With only one map and settings that aren't customizable, Blitz can become stale.
-Framerate often drops.
-The games humour sort of falls flat.
-The only things to unlock as you obtain money are Custom Classes and Titles.
-Only a few maps in Crossfire mode.
-Really only two game modes.

In the end, is it worth a purchase? Personally, I say yes. It has its faults, but it is undeniably fun, and even more-so when played with friends. The best advice I can give is to play the 30 minute timed demo, and try to play both Blitz and Crossfire once, and as many classes as possible, and that should be enough to decide if this is for you.… Expand

Fun starts in the Crossfire mode with 6 vs 6! Though I did notice some drop in framerates, it was just on occasions when there were loads of things happening on the screen.
Online play is smooth and quick.

From only playing the trial version so far I can say that this is a game that if people commit to and want to play online, could potentially be a great game to play with everyone a couple times a week. I have noticed most of the few reviews mention a drop in the frame-rate which might be fixable via an Xbox Live Update, if so this game seems to be a great buy for anyone interested in a comical, yet serious multiplayer arcade 3rd person shooter. This could be the best of it's kind seeing as though it's one of the only of it's kind. Solid game, solid buy.… Expand

Colin MacCabe is a British writer and film producer. He is distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh and professor of English and humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, and a visiting professor at the University of Exeter.
MacCabe was educated at St Benedict's School and the University of Cambridge where he began his academic career. He came to public prominence in 1981 when he was denied tenure, apparently in consequence of his position at the centre of a much publicised dispute within the faculty of English concerning the teaching of structuralism.[1]
He has published widely on film and literature with particular emphasis on James Joyce, Jean-Luc Godard and topics in the history and theory of language. He has served as chairman of the London Consortium, which he co-founded with Mark Cousins, Paul Hirst, and Richard Humphreys.… Expand

As a multiplayer offering, you can't go wrong with MNC. While some technical issues may hold it back from being truly amazing, the solid gameplay, fun tower defense style offering, and co-op class based gameplay truly shine to make this an XBLA game you should pick up.

There's a lot of shooters to choose from on XBL. Some of them are even really good. But if you're looking for a pure experience where squad tactics can take you all the way to the gold... if you're looking for diverse class game play that asks a little more from you than the ability to pull the trigger... if you can do some shooting without some built in motivation to do so other than good old fashioned team combat... Monday Night Combat is a franchise to get in on the ground floor with. Easily addictive and plenty to keep you playing until the morning, MW2 fire and forgetters NEED NOT APPLY. Strategy gets you to the winner's circle. Try it and see.… Expand

Monday night combat is like two delicious candies wrapped in trash. The basic core gameplay involves a team fortress like setup. Six basic classes all of which highlights a different aspect of gameplay. You have offense with the shooter, defense with the tank, stealth with the assassin, support with errmmm... support, sniping with the sniper and the middle ground class assault. These classes are decently balanced for crossfire mode, and while the classes are each set to represent a certain section of gameplay it does not shackle you to it. A tank can rush and still have success, giving you the options to find your style which you will enjoy if you put the time into finding your groove. Furthermore the gameplay is set up so that you can experience amazing moments. As an example, the other day I was assault and got knocked off the map by a gunner. I hit my jetpack in time and fleew back on to the map and rushed the gunner who had wrote me off as dead, and I got an upper cut kill. Really a great sequence. Further depth is provided by the custom classes. You get very direct perks that modify your core gameplay stats. Nothing crazy there, once again you can use them to fine tune the gameplan to suit your style.

The first candy is blitz mode. Blitz is 1 part tower defense and 1 part bunker down shooter. Not surprisingly it works very well. Even when it gets hard it doesn't feel cheap, so that makes the tower part work. If you are a fan of nazi zombies or onslaught modes you will find yourself at home here. Also the game is a great way to introduce fans to tower defense games. For those that haven't played a tower defense game the learning curve isint as steep, on the other hand veterans will find the game very easy and will probably blow through even the tougher defense modes.

The second candy is crossfire. A 6 on 6 game tower defense game. The best way to win is to protect your bots, and the best way to protect your bots is to kill the other team. So it basically turns into a deathmatch game. With any deathmatch game it comes down to balance and response time versus time it takes to kill. As mentioned balance is good, and the second factor is taken care of by having the average kill time to about 3 or 4 seconds. After getting shot you can generally get to cover before you die. Very rarely do I feel I was cheated, especially after increasing my armor.

If the rest of the game was as good as the gameplay I would consider it the best arcade game of the summer (and I loved limbo). Unfortunately nearly everything else is complete crap. Getting into a match is easy, but after the match you have a 50/50 to just get booted. Most people don't feel like waiting the minute 45 seconds in between games (including scoreboard and loading times). A game lasts an average of eight minutes, thus that minute 45 is very significant. With the booting you have about 3 minutes of wait time on average for an 8 minute game. It can be very frustrating. Next for a game that has an amazing amount of potential in terms of team play it has an amazing lack of clan support. This is something I feel may be a major drawback for the game. Long term without clan support there isin't much for longevity. Instead the game will continue to be a game that you play just to have fun. While that may sound great at first, don't expect to be playing this game hardcore in two months. On the other hand you can expect to pick up the game in two months just to have a little fun.

Thus my score of 8, core gameplay works very well minus 1 for interface, minus 1 for no long term longevity.… Expand

Developed by Uber Entertainment, Monday Night Combat is the real standout of this year's Summer of Arcade. Whether you think of it as Uber's love letter to Valve, or a statement of how multiplayer can be done right at an arcade price point, Monday Night Combat is pure fun.

Not a bad game at all ,thow i have just played it for 1 day and i think ive seen everything it has to offer. Still it is an arcade game and not fully priced so it makes sence it doesnt last as much as other games

Ironicly, this rip-off of Unreal Tournament uses the Unreal engine. However unlike Unreal Tournament, this game offers little in the way of entertainment. Easy and highly repetitive, the game never attracted me, and I must say that I didn't buy it, and the demo didn't last that long on my hard drive.

It's simple and repetitive aspect and objective of the game is both the game's weakness and what makes it irresistible to go back to over and over. I think it's one of those games I'll find myself playing 6 months now, even with all the new releases expected by the end of this year. Technical glitches, like choppy framerates, do dampen the overall experience playing the game when there's a lot going on in the game, but nothing that should hurt your chances of survival. MNC is just pure, careless, silly fun, with enough depth for some players to really get into and understand how the game works, from the variety of classes and perks each character can have, to strategies on how to use those classes and how to work yourself around the map and do what you need to do. For $15 with an online mode that will hopefully update itself with new content regularly, you definitely get your money's worth for this stellar Summer of Arcade multiplayer hit.… Expand

The game is a highly entertaining unique blend of tower defense games and class-based shooters. Crossfire mode is a blast. Fast, furious fun with lots of strategy. Blitz seems a little easy but is fun with friends. All in all, an excellent addition to your game library.

MNC is pure silly fun, especially in 6v6 crossfire mode with some friends.Blitz mode is pretty good too but gets very repetitive soon enough.Besides an occasionally slow frame rate there's no noticeable tech problems.All in all this is a fun arcade title but most people will lose interest within a few months but still worth a download.

A fantastic addition to the class based third person shooter genre. Where as the COD games serve up the same recipe year on year with just reworked graphics and even more over the top Michael Bay inspired plots, MNC delivers more innovation than all of the Call of Duty games combined.

It manages to introduce boss battles to online multiplayer with the clever addition of the Jackbot. A mechanic usually only found in single player games is seamlessly worked into this arena based shooter. It also fuses the Tower Defense genre into the game with and again this usually separate and distinct type of game works so well as the basis of Monday Night Combat' Crossfire mode. Where as most online shooters pit player against player, MDC changes the gameplay so the players (pros) must assist their teams of bots to infiltrate the other team's base and lower the shields of the opponent's money ball while building and upgrading towers to defend their own moneyballs.

Another new gameplay mechanic not found anywhere else is the way weapon upgrades are managed. Each bot of pro kill wins cash. Cash can be spent upgrading weapons and equipments at any time during the game. Each new game resets each class's weapons so everyone starts on an equal fitting. Knowing what and when to upgrade brings the tactics usually found in RTS games into play and again, this has been seamlessly interwoven to the core shooter gameplay.

Overall one of the top 3 games to be found on XBLA today. Ignore your Fifa and COD loving friends, Wake up sheeple, this is cutting edge video game design.… Expand

First of this game is 15.00 a steel when you think about it... actually not relay this game isnt pixel junk monsters but its no Black Ops either. This game wins buy combining tower defense and 3rd person shooters but fails by only having 2 modes and only one where you playing against someone instead of bots. The first mode Blitz is where there are 2 Bot spawning points and 1 money ball you and your teammates will work together to fend of all of these bots. The bots getter bigger stronger faster and come in bigger waves throughout each round. On the 10th round though the bots get sheilds and such. you dont have to do this alone though you can buy turrents with the money you earn. You can also use this money upgrade your character. The other mode which theres to teams the hotshots and the icemen. you copete to kill each others money ball. I enjoy this mode better than Blitz but wish they had a mode more focused on killing eachother rather than prtectiong your bots so that they can go terrorize the other teams money ball. Variety would of been nice but ill take this game perfectly for what it is.… Expand

This game has potential, but however fails to deliver and ultimately is a waste of 1200 points. I was very keen to see how MNC would copy and add to the Team Fortress gameplay, the result was a generic and somewhat confusing mess that is fun for ten minutes only! I brought this on impulse, so don't make the same mistake and give it a miss!

Excellent first person DOTA style game and the best 1200 points I've spent yet. I wish they would bring this to PC! I would be all over it like Gabe Newel on a mcrib sandwich.

Class-based frag-fest meets DotA-like lane-pushing and creep waves in a game unlike any other. Unlike lots of shooters, the obsessive fraggers won't dominate unless they learn to work as part of a team, and even the best strategies will fall short without some firepower to back them up. MNC is a surprisingly deep game with great polish and a quirky sense of humor.

Amazing. Funny. Addictive. Incredible. Interesting. Monday Night Combat is all this words, have incredible graphics, great gameplay, and the better is the multiplayer is amazing. I feel that I play again Star Wars Battlefront, and this sensation is amazing.