I believe that Sony brought a lot of developers in to work with Guerrilla during the development process, and also gave them a ton of money to augment classic game design with stellar graphics and first hand knowledge of PS3 architecture.
In other words, with everything they had going for them, a 9.2 game was expected. The game doesn't innovate, it doesn't perfect, and it isn't anything worth talking about from a benchmark perspective, besides console graphics.
Half-Life 2, and to a lesser extent CoD4 have done far more for the genre, and progressed it in several ways, this generation alone. Even Nintendo has put out far superior FPS games in the form of the Metroid Prime series, as far as innovation goes.
These guys aren't necessarily "great" developers. In fact, it's a laugh to compare them with companies like Valve. Putting out a graphics based FPS with a very generic narrative, and no innovation is what we usually flame developers for.
They have proven that they have the potential to not be mediocre. Mentioning them amongst names like Naughty Dog, Nintendo, and Valve makes me f'n sick.
Saying this game is better than Half-Life 2 is nothing short of sacrilege(or ignorance), and it angers me greatly. People saying that, ruin their credibility, and are probably PS3 fanboys(or perhaps only played the PS3 "port" of ToB?).
I don't need your console war.
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.
You're power hungry, spinnin' stories, and bein' graphics whores.
I don't need your console war.
NO NO, NO NO NO.
