Two years is long enough time to make a decent length game and multiplayer-- they just didn't spend their time wisely. I'm guessing Just about every texture and model in that game (except the hat box of course) is one shot. Instead of making a bunch of one shot models and textures, they could have done the smart thing that games like Gears of War and God of War did and was make a lot of reusable textures and models.

By doing that they would save A LOT of time doing textures and models and be able to provide A LOT more content for almost free (a level is probably in the area of 200MB since it's just a large text file).

Having a compressed file can can make the game load faster. Disc loading can be a bottleneck. I'm not saying it's always the case, but using compressed files can speed things up with an almost undetectable loss in quality.

So I just watched the video and I do admit, the game looks beautiful (much better than I expected), the arrow part looks kind of cool, the combat looks good, and for some odd reason they pay special attention to the groin, but it looks like that 8 minute video showed everything the game had to offer and things started to wear thin even by the end of the video.

As much as I dont like that much Zim I have to agree at this point . What they did with MGS4 and GT5 is a joke . Common first they make us bealive that GTHD is GT5 ... than they say that the real deal will come this year ... no its just the prologue and only next year we will get the game . Than with MGS4 .. common , the idea to make the multiplayer download only is retard ...

I wouldn't want multiplayer...and it sounds like if this game was 10 hours longer, it would make the game worse, since it would likely get repetitive.

Better short and sweet than long and painful.

Short and sweet + little replay value = perfect rental game. (save some money and download Warhawk)

I don't understand how this game get docked for not having multiplayer. Devil May Cry had no multiplayer, God of War had no multiplayer, NGS doesn't even have multiplayer. Mario 64 did not have multiplayer. That is because these are not multiplayer games.
I can beat Devil May Cry 3 in one afternoon. That does not make it a bad game. These kind of games derive their longevity from the combat. And even if the entire game was exactly like the demo, I would still buy Heavenly Sword. I'm not going to buy it because I expect to sink 40 hours into it, I'm not buying it so I can fight other people online. I'm not buying it because I want the storyline to make me cry. I'm buying it because I want to beat the tar out of assloads of people with awesome graphics and a cool combat system. Totally worth 60 bucks in my book, and +1 for Ninja Theory.

Well it sounds like the storyline won't make you cry...they said it's not that great...just well acted. And yes, games can be short, but they better have replayability if they're short...and according to reviews, it's a bit too repetitive to warrant much replayability.

For those complaining about the reviewer docking it down to 7.9 after praising the game...7.9 is a good score. Do you really think Heavenly Sword belongs up there with the greats of the decades, the above 9 games? Only certain games should get 8s, and certain games should get 9s. It may be a great game for now, but knowing there's better and that there can be better certainly warrants a 7.9.

I'm not saying what it deserves, I'm saying you can't really dock it down for not having things it not only is not advertised to have but was never even supposed to have in the first place, stuff that games like this never have to begin with.

I understand the complaint about bringing up multiplayer, but I seriously doubt that was a big factor in the final score. He just listed that among other things that may have helped this game. Anything to bring it above 6 hours of play.