Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 65 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 145 Ratings

  • Summary: 2069 - No longer governed by politicians, the world is divided into regions controlled by mega-corporations known as Syndicates. These Syndicates have revolutionized the way consumers interact with the digital world. Consumers no longer require a device to access the world's data and control their technology - they can achieve this with the blink of an eye after a neural chip implant. Civilians clamored to be "chip'd" and to enjoy all that their selected syndicate has to offer. Housing, medical, banking, insurance, education, entertainment, and employment. One complete package - one complete lifestyle. In return, the syndicates gained unprecedented insights, and control, over individuals and their behavior. With insufficient government oversight, business has become war. The Syndicates stop at nothing for ultimate market dominance. On the front lines of this war are the Agents, the syndicates' bio-engineered and chip-augmented enforcers. They can breach anything in the wired dataverse including their enemies, their weapons, and the environment surrounding them, making them the most efficient and deadly technological weapons in the world. Assume the role of Miles Kilo, Eurocorp's latest prototype Agent, and embark on a brutal action adventure of corruption and revenge. [Electronic Arts] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 40 out of 65
  2. Negative: 1 out of 65
  1. Feb 21, 2012
    100
    The smart players will rise to the challenge and feel like they've been appropriately rewarded for their prowess. The campaign gives you a great look at an interesting world, though its abrupt, too-clean ending feels out of place. It's a somewhat disappointing reward for an otherwise exciting adventure that puts a terrific and fun spin on first-person shooting.
  2. Feb 21, 2012
    86
    Syndicate delivers a convincing performance on the Microsoft console. Especially the fact that there is no online pass needed for the multiplayer mode is reason to rejoice.
  3. Mar 8, 2012
    74
    Syndicate has flashes of brilliance, but these flashes are just that... flashes. The game has a great look a vibrant feel and strong shooting mechanics. However it doesn`t always click into the super-polished AAA title it wants to be.
  4. Mar 2, 2012
    20
    It's every generic shooter you've forgotten you played, come back to be forgotten again...Oh, did I mention there's bullet time? Because there's bullet time.

See all 65 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 37 out of 49
  2. Negative: 6 out of 49
  1. I was a little hesitant picking this one up after reading some mixed reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised when I put it in. I loved the style of Deus Ex, but longed for a little more action and not quite as much sneaking around, and this game totally scratches that itch. Being able to hack into enemy's brains and make them commit suicide or take out their buddys is a riot. Haven't played online yet except for when I had the demo, but a lot of reviews say that's the best part, so I'm looking forward to it. Expand
  2. Has the theme, features and graphic elements of the old PC games, but in a First Person Shooter approach this time: it's a good Tactical Shooter, with a nice blend of action and strategy needed to pass the stages. Visually, all things remind me very much the Syndicate original games, but vastly improved, and in a 3D world: as you play, and gain more abilities, the game gets more fun. Expand
  3. 6
    Syndicate is a real mixed package. The single player is horribly short-lived (around 6-7 hours on the hardest difficulty), has a bland story that's not particularly well told, boring characters that are never fleshed out, very linear level design based mostly on taking out waves of enemies, and an overall uninspired and unoriginal feel that borrows heavily from other games (Deus Ex:HR and Crysis 2 especially). It's another case of brilliant concept - bad execution. in fairness the gunplay and breach mechanics wherein you hack enemy cybernetic brain chips to make them commit suicide etc are quite fun. But in regards to the breach mechanics, it's a shame that Syndicate never bothers to try and make the use of them in interesting or tactical ways and they quickly become redundant. However, the co-op multiplayer in Syndicate is actually quite brilliant. There's tons of weapon upgrading, breach upgrading and other levelling mechanics that are fun to play around with. Creating your own syndicate and recruiting other people is great fun, with leaderboards to keep up with how well your syndicate is doing in the world market. Also, the breaching mechanics are much better in the multiplayer with added abilities such as group heal to really bring the need for team work together. Unlike the single player which is really quite straight forward and easy, the co-op is actually challenging - even on normal difficulty and requires a good amount of team work to succeed in some of the tougher missions. It's such a shame that the Syndicate single player is so inept when the multiplayer does nothing but shine! They almost feel like they don't belong to the same game with the multiplayer obviously getting more time during development. Overall a very disappointing reboot of the franchise, saved from the greatest depths of the bargain bin by a very good co-op. Collapse
  4. Ignore these starbreeze employers, its a generic, simplistic shooter with no strategy or much story to speak of, not sure why they stole the syndicate brand as people who buy this wont know of it, and the ones who do will be pissed they made it into a dumb brainless shooter, utter crap!
    I'll give it a 1, they spelled syndicate right I guess.
    Expand

See all 49 User Reviews