At first, Darkness may seem like just another first person shooter with a twist of lemon flavored gimmick thrown in there, but they actually manage to pull it off in this one.

The gimmick in Darkness is your darkness powers. Starting off just being able to control one of your graboids to do stealthy sneak kill and the like, you eventually can flip cars and summon a black hole of darkness to kill everyone. On top of that, you can also summon darklings to do a bit of the grunt work for you. These guys really bring out the twisted humor in the game, gleefully urinating on a downed foes face after ripping them to shreds.

Your powers are drained as you use them, but recharging is a simple as going into places that are devoid of light. Since pretty much all the lights in the game are destructible, it's really not that hard to stay in the dark.

Which brings up one of the problems of the game. The enemies are pretty powerful at first, but no match for your darkness powers, especially later in the game. It's a nice feeling, being such a badass (which is what the devs must have been going for) but it does take something away from the experience when there just isn't anything left to challenge you.

Also, the AI is decent, but not great. Enemies tend to sit around waiting for you and then just turn toward you and shoot. No flanking or any thought what so ever. The darklings also get a little wonked out sometimes, shooting into a wall or exploding in your face. It can be a little frustrating sometimes.

All in all though, the single player game is pretty solid. It gets a little lackluster towards the end, but the story is decent enough and the game play is a nice mix of the familiar with a good enough twist to make it fresh among all the other FPS games out there.

The multiplayer feels like it was slapped on though. One team is mafia types, the other is darklings. It's fun at first, but more of a novelty and not a plus for the game at all.

Well I was really excited to play this game, it shows alot of promise. I was afraid you wouldn't get your "dark" powers until way into the game. Nope you get the right off. They kick butt!!! The graphics are top notch, special kills are cool, and shooting someone in the face might be a little to real. The story is really deep with a big focus on "mafia" related stuff(always makes a good game). Probably the best game I have played on the 360 in awhile