Red Faction: Guerilla is a great multiplayer game. It's not unlike Halo, featuring as it does several large open levels, each filled with weapons and power-ups.  However, Red Faction: Guerilla's gimmick is that every structure within these levels can be destroyed. Got a problem with someone sniping at you from on high? Get someone in close, and they can smash at the base of the tower with their hammer till it collapses. Some of the game modes actually rely on you defending or smashing certain objectives, which makes a change from just capturing a flag. Throw in a robust game browser that makes it easy to find games of a particular type, and you're in for a real treat.

So what's the problem? The problem is that RFG's single-player component is, by contrast, pretty poor. The story's rubbish, the characters and flat and lifeless and the gameplay itself leaves something to be desired. The game tries to be Grand Theft Auto: Mars - since it takes place on that planet - but fails. The missions are extremely repetitive indeed, so that even when you've reached the third area in the game, you're still undertaking the same boring errors. You know the type of thing - destroy this building, protect this other building, blow up this target, and so forth.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if RFG's single-player component was added as an afterthought, since it's so insubstantial and uninteresting. Which leaves you, the gamer, paying forty pounds for what is basically a multiplayer only game. And that's the rub - this doesn't justify a purchase at that price. When Red Faction Guerilla comes down to twenty pounds or so - and it will - then you should snap it up, if you're looking for a genuinely entertaining multiplayer game. If, on the other hand, you want a great sandbox game, then Saints Row 2, also from the makers of Red Faction Guerilla, is a better option.