Bulletstorm is a breath of fresh air (or recycled from the past?) in the FPS market that's overflowing with "gritty" war shooters; that's what the developers set out to create, and I think they accomplished their goal handily.
People Can Fly brought back the old style of crazy, fun, explosive weapons that used to be a staple of the FPS genre - in this case, a revolver that can fire explosive flares; a sniper rifle with bullets that you can steer; or a gun that shoots an explosive chain which can create booby traps out of objects in the environment or your enemies, and a handful of others - plus the ability to kick, and the "Leash", which allows you to pull enemies toward you (setting in a temporary slow-motion effect) or launch them into the air. Combining all of these together racks up points that allow you to purchase ammo for your better weapons, charged shots, ammo capacity upgrades, and just generally aim for a high score. Creativity is a big part of the fun, but it's pretty easy to fall into a simple kick-and-then-shoot everybody regimen. Staying sharp and mixing up how you kill your foes keeps things interesting, but if you just do things the easy way then it has the chance to get stale.
Single player campaign length leaves something to be desired, as it only lasts maybe 6 to 8 hours. I didn't really keep track. But you kind of gradually get a handle on your own playstyle and learn the tricks of the game in your first playthrough, so a second playthrough at least still feels fresh, and there is Echoes mode in which you run through individual levels of the game and try to rack up a high score, plus a multiplayer mode for those so inclined; I wasn't.
The story isn't particularly riveting, but the ridiculously coarse dialogue is an... interestingly entertaining addition to the ridiculously coarse gameplay (as you should know, this is absolutely not a game for the family). The characters don't do much to garner an emotional attachment, but they do feel a bit like drinking buddies: not that reliable, but they're fun to hang around.
The game looks pretty nice. The graphics don't raise the bar, but they're certainly not dated. While the whole game has that generic Unreal Engine 3 look, the developers splashed a good amount of color into the mix so it's not just gray and brown. The character and weapon designs are still very reminiscent of Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War, so it looks a little "been-there-done-that".
The parts I didn't like aren't game-related and are only relevant to the PC version: primarily, the integration of Games for Windows Live. It took me about half an hour after I'd already installed the game to actually begin playing, although part of that was trying to figure out how to open the encrypted config files, because the options menu in-game is a joke. (No FOV settings, no option to disable mouse acceleration, and pretty much everything else that you would normally customize in a PC game.) Games for Windows Live, of course, requires an account to register the game to (at least you can use an Xbox Live account, which I already had). It also distributes game updates and patches, so right off the bat I downloaded a game update, which told me that I needed to close the game to finish installing.
Except there's no way to close the game until you get to the menu. And there's no way to get to the menu without logging into Games for Windows Live. And there's no way to log into Games for Windows Live without installing the update. And there's no way to install the update without closing the game... ad infinitum. I had to open Task Manager and force the game to close.
But once I'd sucked it up and decided to just live with the oppressive iron fist of PC publishers, the game is just a lot of fun. I still don't think I would give up keyboard and mouse just to bypass the PC gaming headache (that is, by playing on the Xbox 360) and once you get past the initial setup, Games for Windows Live stays out of the way.
