Parents' Guide to Battlefield: Hardline

Battlefield: Hardline's campaign presents a gorgeous, lushly detailed world and a twisty story filled with interesting characters on both sides of the law. It also introduces some relatively novel concepts in the world of first-person shooters, such as the ability to subdue rather than kill enemies. However, it also suffers from uneven pacing -- you'll encounter lengthy swathes of play without any real action at all -- and clunky level design that abruptly shifts between open-world play and extremely linear chases without quite managing to really excel in either type of play. It's spectacular in some sections but ultimately forgettable.

Multiplayer, however, is where most players will spend the bulk of their time and makes for a much more compelling experience. Despite some obvious deviations from previous Battlefield games (the urban setting means a different selection of weapons and vehicles compared to the series' war-themed editions), the overall vibe and tactics are surprisingly familiar. There's the same massive scale of maps and players, the same unpredictability from pitting vehicles such as helicopters and armored cars against characters running around on foot, the same sense of chaos that's embraced or tempered by disciplined squads of friends playing as a strategic group. A couple of new, more intimate modes with fewer players and smaller maps provide a nice change of pace for those who want it, but for the most part, the multiplayer is simply Battlefield with cops and criminals instead of soldiers. That'll likely suit most fans just fine.