Xbox 360 Critic Reviews

From around the halfway mark onwards, The Line is a gripping, at time harrowing, and unforgettable experience. [Sept 2012, p.66]

If you just want to click your brain off and shoot some guys, Spec Ops is not for you. That's ok though, gamers looking for that can find it in, well, almost every other game ever made. Spec Ops is unique in its intelligent treatment of adult themes. If you want a different take on the war game, I can't recommend Spec Ops enough.

One of those rare games where the story nearly eclipses the gameplay. There is some powerful imagery throughout the game that will stay with you long after you've played it, and the choices throughout add to the replay factor because you'll want to go in and see what would have happened if you had made a different decision.

Equal parts shooty and thinky, this is a deeply involving action game with a brain. [Sept 2012, p.96]

Spec Ops: The Line may seem like a standard third-person military shooter on the surface, but once you dig a little more, you discover its dark side. War is hell, and no game has delivered that point better than The Line. The decisions you are forced to make and the outcomes they deliver are incredibly gritty and representative of the things soldiers likely deal with in battle. The mind is a powerful tool, and having never served, I have massive respect for people who have had to deal with things like this. If you are looking for an emotionally charged military shooter, Spec Ops: The Line is a must-play.

Even by military-shooter standards, Spec Ops: The Line is an uncompromisingly bleak journey into the mouth of madness. Sharing almost nothing with its predecessors except the Spec Ops moniker, this squad-based shooter tries to make you think - sometimes successfully, sometimes not - about the lines you're willing to cross in battle.

Spec Ops The Line is a good TPS whose lack of originality regarding its gameplay mechanics can be easliy criticized. And yet, the title offers a great experience, depicting a bright and apocalyptic vision of Dubaï, just as if players were there. The mise-en-scène of Spec Ops The Line also manages to share, both psychologically and physically, the craziness experienced by our heroes. Finally, the classic multiplayer modes make us forget the short time needed to finish the main campaign.

As a complete package, Spec Ops: The Line is highly recommended.

It may not be winning any awards, that's not to say that this is one of the most captivating shooters currently available to Xbox 360 users. The morality of your choices has never been so well presented as they are in Spec Ops: The Line and for that reason alone it's a game that everyone should experience, if only for a few short hours.

They say war is hell; Spec Ops: The Line, however, is not. Oh, it is no doubt for Martin Walker, John Konrad, and the poor people of Dubai, but for the player, Spec Ops: The Line just puts the fun back into the word fundamental with a solidly written and acted story, well-constructed gameplay, and perfectly adequate multiplayer.