The tone is unacceptable. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some pearl-clutcher. Puerile can be funny - see Beavis & Butthead, but this is like corporate puerile. The sneering, mean-spirited sort of spoof a bunch of execs might concoct. In fact, a better comparison is Running With Scissors' Postal 2 - those guys have conviction, that's real sincere filth, and it's great. This is just a starched shirt with a turd in the pocket.

Edit: I actually pushed forward for a few hours after writing the initial review - call it completion anxiety - anyway, can't do it. The levels are mega linear, yet you can get lost, and full of really tedious sections. Duke moves like he's swapped the steroids for fentanyl, its full of wah-wah parodies, and it really looks like crap - everything is shiny, why is everything shiny? At least until you zoom in on the wrong spot and it turns blurry, not to mention the god awful "special effects".

I Googled the level list and on discovering I was only on the 9th of 24 levels, well the remnants of desire to get my £3 worth out of this game evaporated.

Just no.

For a game that had 14(!) years of development, and received several vaporware awards in the meantime, DNF turned out simply awful and not worth of the name. While the original DN3D allowed mostly free exploration, DNF follows a very linear path, interspersed with macho cinematics that were already kinda cringe in the 90s but are completely inacceptable in 2010. If you haven't played DN3D and want to spend like 5$ at a sale, sure, grab it, there's worse games to waste your time in.. but by god don't pay regular price and don't expect too much good entertainment.