Dark Sector Demo Finally Graces Xbox Live

The game’s only been out for several months now, so it’s time for some demo action! A demo of the third-person action game Dark Sector can now be found on the Xbox Live Marketplace. As Jonathan put it when he wrote up his impressions of the game, the game suffers from “Gears of War Syndrome,” which is to say that it tries and fails to do nothing innovative with the formula that Gears perfected.

Overall, the single player game can be fairly engaging, but only for about the first half of the game. The glaive itself is entertaining enough for a few hours, but once the novelty wears off, there’s really not much in the story to keep you moving forward. The whole “Soviet world domination” angle has become a tired cliche by now, and there’s not a whole lot to define Hayden as a character — aside from one defining act in the prologue. He’s just a very quiet man with a whispy hairstyle and an affinity for slaughtering without mercy. That’s kind of creepy by itself if you think about.

It might not be great, but it might be enough to distract you from thinking about Metal Gear Solid 4’s impending release, and you’ll be able to appreciate Gears of War 2 that much more once it’s released.