I'm becoming a little hesitant on trying out Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (or GRAW for short). I have a feeling the game may not be everything people hope it will be. The reason? There's no advance review as of yet and the game ships tomorrow. Generally with high profile games there are reviews before the game is available. With GRAW there are two things to be apprehensive of:
1. The rumored demo never surfaced on Xbox Live Marketplace
2. No reviews yet and the game is shipping/available tomorrow
The first one puts up a red flag. There were rumors (I don't know where they were started) about a demo going up last week for GRAW. To this day there isn't one available on the Marketplace. This could be a sign the game is not all it is cracked up to be. The second one doesn't necessarily put up a red flag, but most sites already have reviews of Burnout Revenge for the 360 shipping tomorrow as well. I would argue GRAW is the bigger release since it is an original property, yet no reviews yet. There are rumors of a midnight (Pacific Time) gag order on reviews, but we shall see.
I hope I'm wrong, but I have a feeling this may not be the game everyone was hoping for. When Rainbow Six: Vegas was unveiled by EGM (via 1Up) yesterday it was also stated that they had a GRAW review in the new issue. Thing is 1Up hasn't posted the EGM review as of yet...conspiracy? Who knows.
I still stand by my statement that the next key game on 360 is Far Cry Instincts Predator coming out later this month. If there are advance reviews (remember, this game comes from Ubisoft much like GRAW) I think it's a good indication Far Cry is all it is cracked up to be.
So, buyer beware on GRAW for the moment. I'd hate for you to shell out $60 on a bad game.