Payday: The Heist

 PC
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 550 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 347 out of 550
  2. Mixed: 157 out of 550
  3. Negative: 46 out of 550

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. leonlp12
    Oct 27, 2011
    0
    Payday: The Heist is a great game with a good replayability however the single player of the game is pretty bad while the AI on the game are bad sometimes they pretty much let you die. The online of the game is fairly good but does get boring after some gameplay and sometimes I would rather be playing with bots other then some people online.
  2. JimCorbett
    Apr 2, 2012
    3
    The floaty controls absolutely break this game. It does not flow and the enemies are either brain dead or extremely smart. The unlock system is pretty lame and not up to par with current games. THere is no introduction or anything to tell you how to play the game either, google is used for that. The game is somewhat cheap, but you only get a few missions available to play and that coupledThe floaty controls absolutely break this game. It does not flow and the enemies are either brain dead or extremely smart. The unlock system is pretty lame and not up to par with current games. THere is no introduction or anything to tell you how to play the game either, google is used for that. The game is somewhat cheap, but you only get a few missions available to play and that coupled with the broken gameplay is just a huge deal breaker for me.… Expand
  3. Gladio77
    Nov 8, 2011
    3
    Graphics look decent but the lack of realism is very irritating. You rob banks but when you shoot a civilian you get punished with extra time. Kinda strange, armed robbers with high ethical standards. Compared to the numerous better games out there, BF3, Shogun and even oldies like GTA and mass effect not really worth your money.
  4. moon2587
    May 9, 2013
    2
    I picked up this game because it was billed as the same kind of game as Left 4 Dead, a game I highly enjoy. To be fair, it is just like Left 4 Dead. Just as a blatant rip off with no improvement or adaption.

    See, in Left 4 Dead you have objectives to survive in a linear level and occasionally you have to fight off hordes of zombies while watching out for special zombies that can make    I picked up this game because it was billed as the same kind of game as Left 4 Dead, a game I highly enjoy. To be fair, it is just like Left 4 Dead. Just as a blatant rip off with no improvement or adaption.

    See, in Left 4 Dead you have objectives to survive in a linear level and occasionally you have to fight off hordes of zombies while watching out for special zombies that can make your day even worse. If you get incapacitated you hope your teammates can pick you up further down and you get to rejoin the fun.

    In Payday, you have objectives to survive in a linear level and occasionally you have to fight off hordes of police while watching out for special police that can make your day even worse. If you get incapacitated you hope your teammates can trade a hostage further down and you get to rejoin the fun.

    If it seems I cut and paste that last paragraph, no worries, that is exactly what the developers did for the game mechanics. Instead of having zombies, you have brain dead hordes of police to gun down. Well done aptly named Overkill Software. Occasionally you have to deal with special police forces such as the martial arts 'smoker' or the one hit wonder 'bulldozer'. These are the police equivalents of the 'hunter' and 'tank' zombies respectably.

    There is a problem here though. First off, as you would imagine, everyone has a gun.So the developers put in a 'recovering shield' system on top of a normal health point pool. This makes it a cover game. The problem of this is that in a cover game usually you then have the ability to lean out of cover, usually considered a standard feature. It is sorely missing from this game however, which forces you and your teammates to leave cover.

    This brings me to the next problem. Every cop is a marksman in automatic fire, uses automatic weapons, and is perfectly willing to shoot up a room to kill you. While that might tie into real life where police need to be proficient marksman, you however as the crook seem to have higher morals then the police since you get heavy penalties if you so much as graze a civilian. Said civilians loving to jump up and run into the line of fire. I felt as a criminal more of the protector of these poor AI imbeciles having to constantly tell them to stay down so that my teammates, the police, or myself didn't accidentally shoot them. Add onto this the police's ability to shoot at you from across the map without fail and no good way to tell where the fire is coming from.

    Speaking of AI imbeciles, don't even bother trying to play this game by yourself. Just like in Left 4 Dead you will have to do all the objectives yourself. But considering all the AI has to do in a zombie game is just shoot the zombies, having basic AI can be forgiven. In Payday you need to do things like set up drills that will constantly jam. This forces you to run over and spend several seconds unjamming it so it can finish up the five minute countdown before you get to the next objective. This SHOULD have been something you could tell either an AI or human player to do, or just have the AI do automatically. But it doesn't which gives a solo player more of a workload besides being the only human player in a town with more cops then a police state apparently.

    Overall, this could have been an interesting game. Had the AI for everyone been better, the objectives not tedious, the slew of reality flaws, and it not being a blatant rip off of another game just with guns this game could have been good. But it is only a year and some months old and it feels even more dated then that. Save your $20 and the $10 for the dlc and buy something else, like maybe the better Left 4 Dead. If there was a way to get money back from steam for this, I would.    … Expand
  5. BattleKeks
    Jul 28, 2012
    4
    I found something out what really makes me angry about that game. It starts really promissing: You enter the hospital, for example and you´re about to start the heist. All good. You are cocentrating on your objective and you´re really into that "I can play the bad guys" setting.
    But, and its the same in every mission, after you set up a saw, for example, to break a door, which    I found something out what really makes me angry about that game. It starts really promissing: You enter the hospital, for example and you´re about to start the heist. All good. You are cocentrating on your objective and you´re really into that "I can play the bad guys" setting.
    But, and its the same in every mission, after you set up a saw, for example, to break a door, which takes about 5 minutes which is ridiculous enough to break a door...., the bad thing begins.

    From now on, that game is about to shoot. And kill. And shoot. And kill. I could continue. All you have to do is to shoot the police, which is extremely boring, the game tells you like " forget about your objective, just shoot as many cops as you can".
    After you did that, and the door finally got open, you have to break another door, of course you have to wait 5 minutes again and shoot as many cops as possible. Bad thing is, the shootings are not really spectacular. Graphics are kinda boring and dusty, gameplay is ultra 08 / 15.

    All in all, I am really dissappointed with that game.
    It starts very promissing, you try to get into the story, but after a minute, all you have to do is shoot shoot shoot and forget about anything else. Wow, sometimes you have to reset the saw, lol.
    I would N O T recommend it to buy, unless you want uninspired 08/15 shooting, but in that genre, there are 100 games out there who make it betther.    … Expand
  6. Xalder1
    Nov 26, 2011
    0
    Unplayable. I bought this game because a friend of mine did. He has a worse computer and connection than me, and I already know we will be unable to play together as this game lags like your computer is made of **** On single player. With no AI companions. I don't know how the **** the game is supposed to run four people online when it has absolutely no options to at the very least turnUnplayable. I bought this game because a friend of mine did. He has a worse computer and connection than me, and I already know we will be unable to play together as this game lags like your computer is made of **** On single player. With no AI companions. I don't know how the **** the game is supposed to run four people online when it has absolutely no options to at the very least turn the graphics to low to attempt to reduce lag. Do not get it.… Expand
  7. DaGleese
    Oct 21, 2012
    4
    As much as I like the idea of what they were trying to do in this game, it falls short in pretty much every direction. You can tell the game was designed to be 'Action Packed', every moment on the edge of your seat! However the outcome is not like that at all, it is just a grind through shooting police officers, and telling hostages to stay on the floor while you wait for task X toAs much as I like the idea of what they were trying to do in this game, it falls short in pretty much every direction. You can tell the game was designed to be 'Action Packed', every moment on the edge of your seat! However the outcome is not like that at all, it is just a grind through shooting police officers, and telling hostages to stay on the floor while you wait for task X to complete. The cops just keep coming, so killing them doesnt really give any gratitude, it just feels like a waste of bullets. For a game entirely based on shooting, you dont have much ammo, which some people might think makes it more challenging, but they are wrong, it just makes the whole thing stale, and makes you feel guilty for doing the very thing the game revolves around; shooting.

    Then there's the AI.... the AI is just rediculously bad, it is programmed as if it was a noob cheating on an fps game with an aimbot, literally as soon as a pixel of your body is out of cover 5 bullets are hitting it, its really frustrating because when you get hit it blurs your vision and you cant see the shooter, and so your forced back into cover, I found the easiest way to actually down police officers is to take advantage of nooks and crannys to shoot them, like the gap between a door and the frame, because the AI doesnt seem to see you there, however that just also takes the fun out, because then it's just a case of shooting a completely dumbass unreactive AI, and its then too easy. I gave it a 4, because I admire the idea, and it is obvious alot of effort went into the game. I also didnt pay much for the game, got it in the steam sale for a fiver, and to be honest... the fiver feels like a bit of a waste on it... It's just not that much fun to play...    … Expand
  8. kuehnau
    Jun 8, 2013
    0
    Think of "Left 4 Dead", but with cops and robbers instead and about a million times harder. I don't know why the developers thought it'd be a good idea to make the game so fricking hard, but I won't be spending money on the second one.
  9. NevNav
    May 30, 2013
    1
    Bought this game from steam sale for 5 was expecting for robbery game instead i got COD with some bank elements added to it Basicly if you dont move to certain point or objective there will be endless amount of cops .
    Too few lvl.s too stupid AI Drills getting stuck entire time maybe next time dont buy a chinese copy .
    Ugly graphics Crappy movement Guns unrealistic M4 shoots    Bought this game from steam sale for 5 was expecting for robbery game instead i got COD with some bank elements added to it Basicly if you dont move to certain point or objective there will be endless amount of cops .
    Too few lvl.s too stupid AI Drills getting stuck entire time maybe next time dont buy a chinese copy .
    Ugly graphics Crappy movement Guns unrealistic M4 shoots its mag to empty in 1-2 sec like it's shooting 2000 rpm .
    Every police is a sniper even with shotguns police shooting you through cars and spawning behind you or next to you .
    Police running through walls & sometimes bugging out
    Taser police really after you shot like 100 cops they sent in a police with taser ......................-.-

    TLDR Buy a COD instead this is just its little brother that tryes to be a bank robbery game but fails in it hard.    … Expand
  10. donstuka
    Aug 14, 2013
    1
    Wow, this game is a complete waste of money, seriously! I really thought this would be a game with strategy where you can choose to rob a bank silently or with gunpower. Sadly the whole is just shooting police and killing thousands of them. no strategy at all just simple grinding and shooting. also pretty bugged.

    You better spend your money on a nice meal in a restaurant or something else...
  11. debigman
    May 15, 2014
    2
    This game is bad. Really bad. The bots are so stupid that they can't accomplish objectives, and can't protect you when you are trying to do so. Don't even pay 99 cents for this unless you have 3 friends who wanna play.
  12. Crackfarmer
    Nov 12, 2015
    0
    Terrible Game, AI is crap. Engine is buggy, not much Missions to play. After the 4th time doing the same Mission it gets lame. Wouldn't recommend this Game to anyone.
  13. molenga123
    Oct 28, 2014
    0
    Bad game, bad graphics, not cool, not funny, this is the worst game I have ever played, I got this game free, so I spent my time downloading it., do not buy it!,

Awards & Rankings

74
#74 Best PC Game of 2011
40
#40 Most Discussed PC Game of 2011
46
#46 Most Shared PC Game of 2011

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 17
  3. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Feb 27, 2012
    70
    Entertaining cooperative multiplayer is why you should try this unconventional shooter. Technical issues and obsolete visuals prevent a higher rating. [Jan 2012]
  2. GameStar
    Dec 22, 2011
    80
    Quotation forthcoming.
    Read full review
  3. PC Gamer
    Dec 1, 2011
    71
    Payday is the most exciting parts of your favorite movies cobbled together, swapping the brains for extra bullets. [Jan 2012, p.67]
See all critic reviews »