Ok here goes my review. For 400 MSP I think it's a rather good deal. Then again that's all subjective. First thing you must realize is that this isn't a standalone game and it's building up to Dead Space 2 and bridging the gap between the two games. So it does concentrate more on just getting the story across to you rather than focusing too much on the gameplay.
The story is phenomenal and builds up to Dead Space 2 very effectively. It offers you different paths that you are free to pick and choose as you like. They all lead to the same ending and that's where Dead Space 2 will pick up.
The gameplay is challenging in the later levels and pretty easy to breeze through in the beginning. There's different types of levels;
1)Trace Routes-Which are basic racing types of levels
2)System Override hacks-Probably the least fun of the three
3)Hardware Cracks- Basically puzzles that you must figure out
As far as gameplay goes those are your three types of levels. Yes they're pretty tedious to plow through but as I said before the point of the game is to convey a story so the gameplay department was lacking.
In the end it all comes down to whether or not you are huge fan of the series or just enough to buy the retail games or don't care and just want easy gamerscore. If you're a fan you'll definitely want to get it, if you aren't that big of a fan you can still get it for FREE if you pre-order Dead Space 2 and if you want easy gamerscore then get it because frankly other Arcade titles only give you 200 GS for 1200 or 800 MSP and this is half that.
So there you go, pretty good game for it's price and good way to rack up on some easy achievements. Plus you can get it for free. If you don't want Dead Space 2 pre-order it get this game for free then cancel your pre-order, although I wouldn't recommend it since Dead Space is among some of the top notch titles in this generation. Plus last I checked free stuff was always worth it. If you are a fan of Dead Space then you even get an exclusive armor for use in Dead Space 2. It looks pretty badass.
Story:5/5(Effectively sets you up for Dead Space 2)
Gameplay:3/5(Could be better but as good as you can expect from a tie-in game)
Price:5/5(It's only 400 MSP/FREE)
Overall:4/5
4.0