For Xbox 360 owners who are looking for their own version of God of War, your time has come.  True, Dante is no Kratos and the setting is the seven circles of hell instead of Greek Mythology, but Dante's Inferno is an enjoyable enough game that will satisfy, if not excite fans of the God of War franchise.   Without a doubt Dante's Inferno is a tad more gory and blood-splattered, but you would expect a game set in the fiery depths of hell to be so. 

Where the GOW comparisons come from is that there is no mistaking that the developers wanted to make a game that captured the same magic, and also the same audience, that are drawn to larger than life characters stuck in a grandiose and bloodthirsty setting overcoming foes, or demons in this case, with ridiculously over powered and often large weapons.   I won't ever knock that ethic because it's one that I enjoy, but at least Dante tries to be itself, even if it is trapped in gameplay that belongs to another game entirely.   It really does feel like GOW re-skinned.

While it might be based on Dante's Divine Comedy, nothing is funny about the bind Dante finds himself in as he descends to hell to fight for the soul of his beloved, Beatrice.  Dante is no saint however, he's not a nice guy, and like Kratos, you can't help but root for his success.  With a crusader's cross butchered into the skin on his chest, Dante wages a holy war against the dark forces and with nine circles of hell representing the seven deadly sins, Dante will come up against some very gruesome characters on his travels.

Overall the game is pretty lengthy, you'll be playing this for at least a dozen or so hours but unfortunately there is little incentive, apart from achievements to go back through it all again.  The graphics are often gorgeous, epic environments and chaotic foregrounds make a grandly epic backdrop to this game of revenge and redemption.   It suffers from archaic mechanics that borrow off of God of War and add little back to the genre, but at least it is familiar straight from the start.  What you see is what you get.  Prepare for a very bloody game that goes places where others fear to tread, this isn't the sort of game you should play in front of the young or the elderly as it's bound to offend them with all the crazy shit that goes on in hell and lets not forget the gratuitous nudity which gets a thumbs up from me, but probably won't go down well with kid's parents.

Dante's Inferno isn't the most ambitious game ever released but it is far from broken and you can actually see that with the budget and time the developers were given, they tried their hardest to provide a game that, although may borrow so much it becomes blatant theft, is at least fun and halfway original.  I had fun playing through it but I wouldn't disagree with you if you told me that it wasn't the game for you.

As original as the story may sound, unfortunately Dante's Inferno suffers from a few problems.  Firstly the camera is locked and can't be moved by the player, this is a problem when you're trying to platform or get to certain areas as the camera isn't always the best angle.  Hey I've seen games that have screwed up camera angles as to make their game almost unplayable, luckily it works for the most part here, but when you find yourself falling off the same miserable cliff five times in a row because you keep trying to position the camera only to press something that will cause Dante to fall, you can start to pull your hair out a little bit.   There are so many invisible walls and quicktime events throughout the lengthy 10-12 hour campaign that you'll find yourself rolling your eyes at mechanics and game design that you would find in a game from last generation.   You could go on and on about other problems or tedium you'll find along the way but it would become redundant because there are just as many positives as there are negatives. 

The combat, while not fresh by any means, is serviceable and quite often fun.  Waves of hellish creatures will rise out of the ground from beneath your feet and present quite a challenge to the player.  Players are rewarded for countering attacks with moves that are as satisfying as they are bloody.  You'll also be presented with skill trees that allow you to upgrade weapons and combos but should you die before reaching a checkpoint you'll lose the recent upgrade and have to do it again.   The combat really does have moments of downright awesomeness and with the great art direction everything is kept increasingly gory.  Sure some of the upgrades may seem superfluous when you can complete the game with a handful of moves, but its there for those that like to take their time and learn all the combos available to them.  Prototype, The Force Unleashed and Infamous all have this in common but in the end it really is up to you to do what you like, there's nothing wrong with having a little bit of choice and Dante's Inferno caters for that.