Red Faction Armageddon is the first of the Red Faction series that I've played and to be honest the game started on a downer for me, I read the back of the box to see the green words I love "Co-op 2-4 player", great, my girlfriend and I can play this together!
This, however, is no the case, the co-op isn't local co-op at all, it's over System link or Xbox Live, so why it states Co-op in green, I have no idea...
But on to the review...
As it boasts, it's full of mayhem and destruction of any (specifically) man made structure (However this isn't 100% true, but you have to draw the line somewhere...
I bought this game not expecting much (I only bought this game as Brink was £30 trade-in against it) but I have been pleasantly surprised.
The game starts off, easing you in, letting you get to grips with aiming, shooting and switching weapons before letting you loose on a couple of enemies. As the game goes on it lets you get your hands on a few more "fun" weapons.
To start the game, I wanted to use the Maul as much as possible, but this isn't particularly wise for 2 reasons, 1) On Insane difficulty, I don't think you're meant to and 2) After the first few "levels" the enemies like to jump around out of your reach, it's hard to hit an enemy with a Maul when they're on top of a pillar.
I spent most of my time (and killed most enemies) with the amazing Magnet gun, tag an object (like a Pillar) then tag the enemy and watch it fly into their face and squish them into mush, it's great fun!
The game handles really well, there are upgrades you can buy using Salvage that you find (Or once you have the upgrade, you can get this by killing the enemies), they upgrade a multitude of things, from health, damage done by your weapons and you can even get a "shell" that can reflect damage back at enemies.
To be honest, I'm not the best person at 3rd or even first person shooters, but playing this on Insane difficulty isn't really that challenging, sure I've died once or twice by being outnumbered and overwhelmed by the enemy, but their attacks are usually easy to dodge, and they are pretty simple to kill.
There are also two other game types to play, a (what seems to be standard these days) last stand type game, where you fight wave after wave of enemies, and also a game type called "Ruin", which gives you weapons and freedom to destroy as much as you can in the time limit given. There is a demo given with the game, but it's 400 MS points to unlock the full version (The download is 128kb, so the content is already on the disc, which I feel is a ripoff, but each to their own)
Overall, the game is good, better than most other releases at the moment (perhaps with the exception of LA Noire, but that's a whole different kettle of fish!)
Definitely worth a buy, should entertain you for a while (especially if your friends buy it, the last stand game is always fun to play)