Spec Ops: The Line first appears to be another all too typical 3rd person triple A shooter, with little emphasis on narrative or characters and far too much work on making explosions look pretty. And indeed, that's exactly how this game is advertised.

Be it first or third person, the gameplay in shooters has become so standardised that players will know the controls more or less straight away, and whatever passes for a plot serves only as an excuse to have enemies pop up to eat bullets. Essentially, you've seen one, you've seen them all, right?

Other than one title on the PS2, we've not seen Spec Ops since the days of the original PlayStation.  In fact, it's been since 2002 since we've played the series and many had presumed we'd seen the end of the Spec Ops franchise.