Transformers: Dark of the Moon is very pretty; the environments are lush and the models are detailed, although, since I haven't seen the movie yet, I can't speak to how accurate the models actually are. Still, they all have an appearance similar to the first Michael Bay Transformers movie, so I expect that the models are pretty close. The one thing I found a bit odd is that almost every transformer in the game transformed into a land vehicle (i.e., car or truck)... even the Decepticons. Now, again, perhaps that's true to the film, but when Soundwave transformed into an SUV, I was a bit baffled. Also, most of the (fodder) enemies you fight are generic transformers that transform into generic looking cars. This is true whether you're playing as an Autobot or a Decepticon. To distiguish between the two, there are different voices and a palette swap - Decepticon generic cars are gray, whereas Autobot generic cars are red... sometimes, anyway.

The music and sound effects do the job, but I found Soundwave's voice extremely difficult to understand at times. A lot of the time, it wasn't all that important; it was just chatter to give Soundwave the appropriate feel, but for some of the audio that was supposed to tell Laserbeak what to do, for example, I had a hard time distinguishing what he was saying, with the heavy audio processing that was done to the voice.

I haven't seen the new Transformers movie yet, but I am curious to see how the storyline of Transformers: Dark of the Moon relates to the movie. There are some missions in Transformers: Dark of the Moon that seemed a bit awkward in the game, leading me to wonder if the movie has the same sort of scenes. More specifically, any time you have a large robot that transforms into a car or SUV and they're traipsing around in a jungle.

The game is composed of a series of missions that, together, advance the storyline. As you play through Transformers: Dark of the Moon, you will play as different Autobots and Decepticons. You start out as Bumblebee, breaking into a Decepticon installation and planting a virus. Once that mission is over, you play as Iron Hide, fighting off Decepticons in urban combat to buy time for an evacuation effort to complete. Next, you control Mirage, as he races down a curvy mountain road in disrepair and then treks through a jungle. Then, you take control of Soundwave, who has to do a recon mission in the jungle and, when he gets to a military installation with tight security and sends Laserbeak in to finish the mission, you control him.

Most of the transformers you control can switch between three forms: vehicle (their fastest movement), Stealth Force (heavily armored and moves pretty nicely) and Robot. There are certain circumstances in which you can't access certain transformation modes, either based on the story (after taking heavy internal damage) or during certain transitions and cut-scenes. Laserbeak can't transform, but instead, can do this hiding move, where he hides inside of certain items in the environment and can stun enemies from cover, then jump out and attack for double damage. Most of the transformers have more of a third-person shooter feel, and the Laserbeak parts have a bit of a flight sim feel, although he will hover in place if you're not actively making him move.

All story aside, however, the mode that is the most fun is the Online Multiplayer mode. In this mode, you can choose from some of the Autobots and Decepticons in the game, or you can make a Custom character, choosing his load out and customizing both an Autobot and a Decepticon version of your Custom character (which is selected based on what team you end up on). You can create or select characters for a Scout, Hunter, Warrior or Commander and then, the side you're on and the class you've chosen to play determines which character you play as. While you might start out a bit under-powered, you will gain experience at the completion of a match, which counts toward upgrading that particular class. If you play as a Scout, your experience will go toward upgrading your Scout characters, whereas if you play as a Warrior, then your experience counts toward upgrading your Warrior characters. Where the Campaign mode can get frustrating, I greatly enjoyed the Multiplayer gameplay, even when I wasn't doing so well.

Overall, I found the difficulty in Transformers: Dark of the Moon to be spotty and frustrating. I could easily whiz through huge portions of levels without hesitation. In other areas, merely slowing down my progression would reduce the difficulty enough to get me through a slightly tougher spot. Certain areas, however, are simply frustratingly difficult, and require try and try again to get through.

As the tips displayed during loading screens will tell you many times over, rushing ahead will make things worse for you; if you carefully creep along (when possible), you can typically pick off a few enemies at a time rather than bringing the wrath of the Decepticons (or Autobots, depending) down upon you. That is, of course, assuming that you're not in one of the timing-based levels. Most levels will urge you to hurry to your destination before it's too late, but it's not truly urgent unless there's a on-screen timer or an ally's health bar is involved. In the level when you play as Mirage, for example, you're covering Bumblebee as he makes his way through the level and, if you let him take enough damage, he will die and you'll have to restart.

The new Stealth Force mode is quite the heavy-hitter... and is a more heavily tanked mode. Further, it seems that your health recovers much quicker in this mode. The bottom line is that most of the time, this is the mode you want to be in - especially if you find yourself dying.

There were various oddities with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, overall. To start, I have to point out that when you load the game (every time you load the game), there is some strange popup over the game that simply says, "Checking" and has a progress bar. I don't know what, exactly, it's checking for, but it does that every time I start the game up.

Another pet peeve is in one of the levels where I was playing as Mirage and was tasked with keeping Bumblebee alive. When I would mess up and get Bumblebee killed before I could take out his attackers, I would see Bumblebee get killed, then get taken to the screen where I could choose to restart from my last checkpoint, restart the level or quit. The option that would save the most amount of my progress was to restart from my last checkpoint. However, when I select that option, I would get a warning that any progress since my last save point would be lost. Well, duh. And, if you think about it, given my limited options, it already was lost. There was nothing I could do to avoid losing that progress, so prompting me with a warning to the fact and making me hit the "okay" button really isn't necessary here.

Another thing that annoyed me quite a bit was a visual glitch with Mixmaster. When you're playing as Ironhide, there is a boss fight with Mixmaster and, at the beginning of your final showdown with Ironhide, you have to use your newly upgraded Heavy Iron weapon on Mixmaster's arm-shields to take them out. They will have "health meters," but in the heat of playing, they are easy to miss. Well, after a few attempts, I managed to remove them, but then got killed by Mixmaster and decided to take a break. When I returned to pick up where I left off, it started me after I had destroyed the arm shields, but Mixmaster's model looked like he still had them. As a result, I spent several futile attempts trying to remove the armor from his arms until I finally realized that there was one health bar (for Mixmaster, himself), rather than two (one for each side of his arm-shields). Upon realizing that, I got past him in the next try, by staying in Stealth Force mode, staying out of his way and cycling through my weapons, unloading them on him.

While I'm lacking the movie for comparison, there are some parts of Transformers: Dark of the Moon that are just plain weird. Other parts, as mentioned above, are frustratingly difficult. And, while I'm not a walking Transformers encyclopedia, I used to watch them (originals) all the time. Medium difficulty was too easy for most of the game, then too difficulty in the frustrating bits. I don't want to play through on Easy, because most of the gameplay on Medium is already too easy. There have been better Transformer games before, and there have been worse (the Wii version, for example, that doesn't allow the use of Robot mode)... but the fact that Transformers: Dark of the Moon on the PS3 is much better than the Wii version doesn't make it a great game. If you collect everything Transformers, then you'll pick it up regardless - and if you're interested primarily for the online multiplayer, then go for it, but for anyone who's not quite sure, I would suggest passing on this one - or renting it first.