There's been quite a lot of attention on the launch of Crime Boss: Rockay City ever since the Payday-like shooter was first announced, but it unfortunately seems like it can't live to the hype - at least not right now.
The game finally arrived on PC earlier this week, and the reviews have been pretty poor so far, averaging out at 55 on Metacritic at the time of writing based on the opinions of nine critics. Here's a look at what some of them had to say:
Everyeye.It (7/10)
"Crime Boss Rockay City is a production with several critical issues, both on the purely technical front and on the situational variety offered by the package. [Aside from] these defects, however, the [game] succeeds in the goal of embodying the spirit of the film genre to which it is inspired, also thanks to the well-known actors in its cast."
Inverse (6/10)
"The whole project is clearly a loving homage to the glory days of ‘90s action flicks, but the tone-deaf execution misses the mark. But how long can that hold your attention for when your multiplayer game time is far better spent elsewhere?"
ScreenRant (2.5/5)
"In its current state, Crime Boss: Rockay City feels like a low-level wannabe criminal trying to get rich quick on a street populated with multiplayer shooters who already do better."
TheGamer (2/5)
"Overall, Crime Boss is a game at war with itself. All three modes offer something, but none of them does their specific thing that well. Meanwhile, the characters and writing that surround these missions feel painfully stuck in 2011. And customisation is either limited or random in a way that makes it feel like you never quite have control of your loadout."
Rock Paper Shotgun (No Score)
"I'm not going to begrudge the Dannys, both Glover and Trejo, a pension. I just cannot fathom the decisions that went into making Crime Boss: Rockay City. Payday 3 is slated to be out later this year."
Of course, the silver lining here is that Crime Boss: Rockay City isn't coming to Xbox until some point later in 2023, so the development team has time to polish up the game over the next few months ahead of its console release.
The question is, can it turn some of these review scores around and attract a healthy player base by then? We'll have to wait and see how popular it proves on PC over the next few months... it's definitely not the best of starts.