Interesting. I like this sort of discussion of projects that could be simply ‘bad’ (whether games or movies or books or whatever), but might have the potential for reclamation if viewed in a different light. I especially like the idea of a game that might not be any fun, might not be trying to be much fun, but that doesn’t tilt its hand to comfort its audience, doesn’t quite make clear what the project intends to do. I suppose this intersects with what were being called ‘art games’ a few years back (e.g., Passage, The graveyard), though in most of those cases the intended level of fun seemed pretty clear from the start.

That said, there’s a good chance I won’t bother getting around to trying this one out. Maybe I’m skeptical that such a large-budget, mainstream-marketed game really manages to transcend what apparently first appears like bad shoot-em-up mechanics?