At first glance, Lost Planet appears to be one of those water cooler games. An adventure so full of epic moments that being killed time and time again by gigantic bugs (or Akrids) in Mech Suits (or VS's) would never get old. How disappointed I was. Within the first few minutes of game play, you die. As you are fighting the enormous "Green Eye" Akrid, you start to wonder what it is exactly you are supposed to be doing. Then you realize, this prelude is nothing more than a set up for the plot; you have amnesia. As you progress through the story, which are just mindless missions, you realize there is no tension. Nothing seems to be at stake. Not only in the story, but in the game play. Smaller Akrids barely attack you and are just there to be shot at, and the larger ones only kill you when you get stuck between them and a wall due to camera error. I don't have to tell you how annoying that becomes. My worst complaint about the game is the horrible decision to take the options menu and place it in the main menu, outside of game play. When you realize you want to change some settings on your controller, or screen, you must exit out of the game, losing your progress. Then you select your options not knowing how the changes will take affect, until you reload and get back into the game! This gets old very fast. All in all, Lost Planet is gorgeous, ambitious and just not very fun to play. If you are looking for a shooter where you can really blow things up and still feel like there is some purpose to it, I recommend hooking up your last-gen Xbox and throwing in Mercenaries. RANKING: 6 OUT OF 10