We highlighted CrossfireX's campaign earlier this week in a preview from Easy Allies, and they seemed generally quite positive about the game (comparing it to the original Xbox title Black), but IGN has been much more scathing.

The outlet was given access to a couple of early campaign missions for the preview, and described the single-player portion as a game "trapped in the Xbox 360 era", calling the enemies "generic", describing missions as "filled with tired tropes", and criticising the story as "shallow" and the gameplay as "a bit boring".

Ouch.

"I’ve been tremendously excited for CrossfireX as the trailers we’ve seen have been flashy, bombastic, and visually impressive. Sadly, none of that was present during the few chapters we had the opportunity to experience early as part of this preview.

Enemies look and sound generic, and they aren’t particularly smart either, walking right into your bullets if you’ll let them. The levels we did play had little of the visual flair in the marketing material, and the missions are filled with tired tropes like waiting for a guy to open a door, forced walking so you can be delivered narrative over coms, and of course a dash of campy military ops dialogue sprinkled in."

The campaign is being developed by Remedy Entertainment (Alan Wake, Control, Quantum Break), and will serve as the paid aspect of CrossfireX (no prices revealed yet), with the multiplayer being a free-to-play offering. The entire package is currently set to release on February 10th, 2022.

There are only a few written previews that have gone live to date, and the impressions are all over the place. To give you a better picture of the various opinions that are out there right now, here's what else we've managed to find so far:

TheGamer

"CrossfireX is a decent attempt to bring a story into the series, and while it’s got an intriguing tale, I’m not sure if Remedy’s gameplay is good enough to make me want to engage with it. It’s the game equivalent of comfort food - nothing special, but you know what you’re getting, and when you crave it, it hits the spot, even if you do feel a little guilty afterwards."

COG Connected

"CrossfireX’s single player campaign promises to be special. It isn’t revolutionary, but there are enough original ideas to keep it interesting. The action is plain fun. Swapping between characters keeps the story moving, and it’s perfected-paced. Some players might look at the single-player aspect as superfluous, but Remedy has obviously put a lot of effort into making it worth your time."

GameSpew

"It appears that CrossfireX is missing that certain something that usually makes a Remedy game so captivating. The story seems interesting, sure, and the gameplay is solid, but there’s nothing that stands out as being particularly unique; there’s no hook that keeps you glued to the screen."

Digital Trends

"For those who miss the days where shooters had lots of firefights and little to say, CrossfireX should satiate that hunger, even if it lacks some personality thus far. It’s a fast-paced game with snappy gunplay, promising action sequences, and an intriguing, intersecting story."

What are your hype levels like for CrossfireX right now? Let us know down in the comments below.

[source ign.com]