Actually, I've been waiting for this game for at least three years, and probably longer. I'm also probably what you would consider a hardcore gamer: I buy a half dozen games per month usually. I'm also an old fogey in today's "gaming world", clocking in at 31 years. I'm typical Max Payne fodder in some respects: I've followed ALL the hype since the very first hype came out. I'm also picky as hell: Out of all the games I buy, 95% of them get tossed on the shelf within, literally, the first 20 minutes. I keep perhaps one or two games installed during any monthly period, the majority of them being thrown away.
Having said all that, I love this game. Bigtime. I'm on my 3rd pass through it now on difficulty, and I'm eagerly awaiting the new mods that will undoubtedly come out. You can save all the speeches and lectures and summations about how I've been brainwashed somehow by Broussard (sp?) and his crew, that somehow the hype mixed up my mind and confused me into liking this game. For the most part, such rantings and philosophical musings are complete rubbish when you relate it to anyone you don't know. For me personally, I've been playing games since they were out on Commodore64's and TRS-80's, I'm a little past the stage of being "brainwashed" or marketed to death into liking something I wouldn't otherwise like.
And frankly, my personal opinion, is that the people who are susceptible to "brainwashing", overmarketing, and overhyping said product are those people literally accusing anyone who likes it of being "manipulated". If you hadn't been subjected to and fallen for the overhype and overmarketing you wouldn't be throwing infantile little fits because, in your opinion, the game is too short, doesn't deliver on something promised, doesn't look like real life, or a thousand other "shortcomings", in your feeble little mind.
That said, my apologies for the essay. LOL.
General Gaming 
Max Payne set to be a superhit? 
Linear Mode
