Left 4 Dead -- Final Opinion.

The final opinion on Left 4 Dead has been a long time coming. I wanted to knock out the achievements before posting the final opinion. That's taking too long. I am however down to the final two achievements. The monumentally tough Nothing Special and the time consuming Zombie Genocidest. In chasing Nothing Special in particular all of the game's flaws come to light. In a blisteringly bright light at that. Left 4 Dead is a fun game. An amazingly fun game. But a seriously flawed game. The game cheats. The more you play, and at the tougher difficulties, it just becomes too apparent. But let's break it down. The graphics are great and nicely detailed. The sound, and music are also very well done. Especially considering how integrated they are in the final game. You depend on sound and musical cues like no other first person shooter before to alert you to incoming hordes and the presence of special infected. The voices are great all around. The dialogue is smart and funny. The net code is very good. Halo 3 level stuff. And the controls are perfect. I'm also really rather fond of the level progression. The levels themselves are smartly designed. The game's much touted director could use some fine tuning. It would be oh so much better if they could only make him a little smarter by removing his ability to cheat. I pretty much liked everything else about the game but feel strongly enough about the cheating factor to deduct two full points from the score. I'm giving Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 an 8. I'm looking forward to the sequel, and I hope they spend the time to fine tune the director.