I bought it, I played it, and I loved every second of it.
The moment you enter the intimidating Butcher Bay triple-max prison you can tell that just about every aspect of this game resonates quality. The graphics are just fantastic, and liberal use of normal mapping gives almost every enviroment you're in a phenomenal amount of detail. The graphical extravaganza doesn't stop there though, the animations are top notch as well and I would guess that they were largely based off motion capture, and every person you meet in the prison has a uniqe face and voice.
The sound in CoR: EfBB is stellar as well, especially the voice acting. Say what you want about Vin Diesel, but he delivers all of his lines with perfection. It's not just him though, all the voice acting in the game is close to perfect. The music is rather neat and all the sound effects are certainly above average as well. Actually, I can't really find anything to complain about in the sound department.
Another thing that struck me after a while is that the enemy AI is quite impressive indeed, at least on the 'hard' difficulty where the guards really can give you a hard time. Instead of rushing towards you with guns blazing they retreat when they spot you, doding behind cover and trying to prevent you from coming up close. If you hide in the dark, they'll switch on their flashlights and come looking for you. All these little traits feel makes them feel very realistic, as well as their rather amusing taunting when they can't find you.
The game is played in a first person perspective, CoR: EfBB is however a far cry from your average shooter in that it blends several types of gaming elements all in one. Basically, you got a first person shooter, stealth and fighting game here. Usually, games that blend different types of gaming elements like this end up being really good in just one of them or bland in them all. This isn't the case here though, every aspect of the gaming mechanics are superbly done with a pretty kickass hand-to-hand fighting system and some exeptional stealth mechanics. The shooting part is more or less straightforward, but highly enjoyable. There aren't any fancy rayguns or hi-tech weaponary in this game, just your back to basic bullet hoses like shotguns and assault rifles. This isn't a bad thing though since the sound they make when you fire them and the muzzle flash really makes it feel as if they got a good kick to them.
The only thing that really prevented me from giving this game a full 10 is the fact that it is on the short side. I completed it in the region of 15 hours of hard difficulty, with most secrets found, it was a sweet ride though, since the story of the game is fantastic. Then again, I would probably be complaining about the short lenght if it took 40 hours to play through. And this is not one of those games I play through once and then grow bored of.
I could go on and on about the finer points of CoR: EfBB and how great I think it is, it's obvious that some real talent and hard work went into this product. I mean, solid story driven first person games aren't exactly common in these days of shallow multiplayer-based first person shooters paced for people with attention deficit disorder.
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