Review written by Ryan Lord.

Hitman series developer IO Interactive has released a new crime thriller with Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, which pits two criminals together in an uneasy alliance. Can Kane & Lynch live up to the Hitman standard?

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2007/1 [...] ch_review/

8.0...Do you guys got paid by Eidos for this score?

Of course you will say no whater it's true or not!

No, we did not get paid off by Eidos or any other entity for this review or any other review. But it's clear your mind is made, so I'll just ask you a simple question:

Have you played the game yet, Outlandos, or are you just basing your petty comments off of other Kane & Lynch scores/reviews that you've read? Perhaps it would be more productive for everyone if you come come up with a few points of contention regarding Ryan's review and express your own opinion of the game before resorting to cheap, drive-by insults that question our integrity.

Rob, I actually took outlandos' comment to be somewhat tongue in cheek given what happened to Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot the other day?

Well if it was tounge in cheek, I apologize. I figured he was referecing the GameSpot controversy, but in a bad way.

A 7.3 is about what it should be,....8.0 is a bit high but acceptable.

It's just not the Gamespot controversy, but it's also the rating controversy.

EIDOS Kane and Lynch site had to pull off their website all the '5 star ratings' given to the game by a bunch of reviews when none of them did not gave them 5 stars or even use a star system (like your 8.0/10).

I have to agree with this comment...and ive played through the game...The story is good and draws in you in...but as for the game play...meh. The game reminded me of another game (the name slips my mind ATM) on the PS2, so the game play didnt seem new...and to top it off...the AI is bad.

Overall the game is flawed...5 or 6 at best. With better games out there...i can see this getting pushed aside really quick

I think the review does include the issues but they are heavily embedded behind a slightly sugar coated review, in summary:
* Good story (for a FPS, nobody expects too much depth :-D )
* The AI is stoopid (mostly) or too accurate.
* Cover system is poor (when compared to GOW)
* The Graphics are ok but not up to the recent crop of releases (However on the 360 version I played I must say framerates were good).
* Buggy Multiplayer ("crashing" ) with need for (Silver/gold) m$ live account

It ain't that bad but 6.5 (maybe 6.9 tops). For a game that needs "polish & refinement".

I think the other problem that Gerstmann did point out was the language. But then maybe thats me being a Brit & the fact I feel that the F' word is a poor excuse for some extra gritty dialogue...

As for the long discussion over game reviewing in general, I can only hope developers increase the use of downloadable demos. This should allow the game to sell itself (or not).

That's fine, I have no problem with people criticizing reviews or offering drastically different opinions of a game. In fact, I welcome such activity. I just hate when someone disagrees with a score/review and automatically assumes that the reviewer/site/magazine is on the take. Like I've said before, if you want to bash us and call us idiots, crack-smoking noobs or whatever, hey, I can live it (though I'd rather read more constructive criticism). But questioning our integrity because of a reviewer's opinion, to me, is out of line.

While I do disagree with your review of the game, I respect that you had the courage to write your own (favorable) review of the game after the whole Gamespot thing.

But, I must say, with regards to the gamespot thing you had to expect to get posts like #2

Of course we did. In fact we discussed this a few times over the last week. And truthfully, I'm really thankful we didn't have a big, sprawling background ad for Kane & Lynch running on Tom's Games, because that surely would have looked bad. And don't credit me, I just run the site -- Ryan is the author on this one, and he had the guts to go with a good review of this game after it had gotten bashed. And we can take the heat for that, I assure you. But I just hate when opposing opinions on a game automatically lead to accusations of selling out to commercial pressure.

I've played it through in my friend's place under lowest difficulty.

And if I'm not mistaken, you guys gave Crysis 8.5/10 and this thing 8/10

I don't believe anyone who's played both games would find it convincing, not even close.

Well, since you guys gave COD4 9.5/10, I assume you guys value story/plot more than any other elements.

But come on, the story in Kane and Lynch is good?

Two guys killed a lot of cops in the US and Japan, trying to get their hand on important stuff. And then they gone to some other places killed more militia and mercenaries and their bosses who want them dead. The end.

You call that a good story?

If that's the case I don't have much to say...

One thing I want to point out is that Travis Meacham reviewed Crysis, and Ryan Lord review Kane & Lynch. Two different writers with two different views of two different games. And I gave CoD4 a 9.5 because I think it's one of the best games I've played in the last two years. That's my opinion.

That actually sounds better than the story that Crysis ended up having which can be summed up thusly:

North Koreans take over an island where archaeologists just uncovered an ali--the end.