5. Graphics
Spec Ops is set in a sandstorm ravaged Dubai, where buildings are trashed, windows are smashed, and it's not unusual to find people strung-up from the bent streetlights, their skinless bodies thick with tacky blood and clouds of flies buzzing around the dark pockets where their eyes used to live. No, it's not a pleasant looking game, but it is pretty. Really pretty. First off, the sand... all that sand. It crumbles and slips beneath your tired boots, it whirls around on gusts of unrelenting wind, and it explodes into great, impenetrable clouds as frag grenades boom all around. It looks good, and is probably only second to the sand found in Uncharted 3 - and that's no mean feat. Secondly, yes there is a lot of sand, but Spec Ops isn't afraid to mix its environments up. You'll travel through dunes - plenty of dunes - but then you'll find yourself in ruined apartment complexes, dilapidated malls, city squares, forests of rusted cars and twisted metal, nightclubs that still leak neon from their forgotten lights, and finally luxury skyscrapers that have managed to withstand the worst of the storms and still tower above the wreckage of the world in all their excessive splendor. Your man Captain Walker looks as good as he should this late in the generation's cycle, and he and his two guys run and roll and jump and shoot with some very authentic animations.