Killzone

Pros:
+ Environments look pretty decent for the time, with some occasionally inspired setpieces. Generally none of the environments were frustrating to have a firefight in which is all I can ask for, even if a lot of them are just ruins/forest/cliff/pier ad nauseum
+ Dusty, deserted Earth-2 setting makes a lot of sense for a plot about space nazis invading. There's also a slight film-grain effect over everything here which is cool as it really contrasts the old timey war story tone with the futuristic setting well
+ Weapon variety is slightly above standard, with the usual mainstays present (with both assault rifle variants having secondary grenades and shotgun attachments respectively) and a couple big boy toys to play with. The shotgun is absolutely terrible though, honestly.
++ Solid rumble support added a ton of feedback for the larger weapons which felt satisfying. The chainguns feel weighty, missile launchers feel punchy, and
++ The playable characters add a much-needed level of replayability to the campaign, as they play differently with separate default weapon loadouts and gadgets available. Early on, I really preferred Luger to the others because of her thermal vision and accurate SMG, as it felt like my shots were being more carefully considered - but her health is low and it's difficult to play her in later stages. The star of the game, though, is the bad-mouthed Rico, who carries around a fucking brilliant and destructive minigun that will raze pretty much everything. It's so heavy he can't even use ladders. That's how dumb this game is.
++ Story is engaging enough in a bash-the-fash B-movie type of way, and although the characters are fairly 2-dimensional war archetypes, they're pretty likable, and it's clear that effort was put into their designs. I especially liked the fact that General Benedict Goatee got progressively more and more angry with your victories, reminded me of that hysterical Hitler scene from Downfall
++ I found myself looking forward to cutscenes and firefights to see the next squad interactions, specifically the open racism and smug shit-talking between Hakha and Rico, and the 8th-grade level writing on the sexual tension between Templar and Luger. It's basic and dumb but it was extremely entertaining and had me openly guffawing more than once
++ A decent second act and fast-paced third act save this game from tripping over itself. The missions before the squad is assembled feels like a totally different, dumber version of itself.

Cons:
- Killzone reminded me of a lot of better games. The enemies looked and moved like the soldiers from Half-Life, the WW2-esque environments reminded me of the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games of the era, and the space opera plot, lack of ADS, and auto-replenishing health bar were clearly inspired by Halo: CE. It's a weird hodge-podge of early 2000s success stories, and while it's just enough to carve out its own identity, it really lacks any truly unique or innovative foundation to its aesthetics or mechanics
- The game is broken into missions inside of broader levels, but each mission gets its own "victory" screen with scorecard. The lengths of these missions became apparent extremely quickly, with the norm around 10-15 minutes but some taking less than 5 and others It's jarring and occasionally took me out of the experience
- Well over half of the weapons have a spread so severe you can't really long-range with them. I don't necessarily mind this mechanically, but the Helghast consistently snipe you from across the map with the same weapons, making some scenarios pretty unfair feeling
- "Surprise" grenade launcher enemies can one-shot you if, heaven forbid, you played as Luger, who has the least amount of health. They're usually hiding around corners and death usually erases a few minutes of progress, which was occasionally annoying
- There is no score at all to this game outside of the main menu music, and the sound design is pretty amateur, so pretty much your entire time walking through the environments is completely silent. I get that they were going for a HL1/Halo thing, but both of those games used their scores effectively to emphasize important moments. Killzone never does this
-- The L2 cover mechanic, one of the decisive features of the game, doesn't really work at all. I almost never used it since it fumbling with it until it worked meant guaranteed damage
-- AI on both sides is completely braindead, meaning most small firefights (ie. the first 4 hours of the game) are lacking any sort of tension. Eventually the scale of the fights prevails and you have to start thinking about self preservation but it takes a while
-- Outside of a couple vehicles that roll up, the enemy variety is something you can count on your hand in this game. Every firefight is gonna be spent shooting at a Helghan soldier with a gun and varying amounts of health and that makes it difficult to play for extended sessions
-- Outdated control scheme makes it awkward to play, and mechanics like keeping track of headshots and hit rate make little sense because of it. After a few hours, you get used to it, but it never feels normal