Your first hour in the desperately dark world of Hunted: The Demon's Forge is not going to be a pleasant one. The preface-free introduction doesn't exactly instill a sense of literary excellence. The characters presented could generously be described as "grating." Combat is limited to a fairly uninspired mix of plain ol' shooting and plain ol' stabbing. There's a troubling realization that the game contains items, but no inventory, which everyone should be able to agree is absolute madness.

Slowly but surely, however, the game's oddly-shaped puzzle pieces begin to plop into place. See, most of the issues observed above are never really remedied -- instead, developer InXile Entertainment seems to have made an unconventional and fascinating decision to thoroughly nurture a small handful of other genuinely great ideas.