3.5/5 ★ – ThumbsMckenzie's review of Empire of Sin.

Civ meets XCOM meets the Chicago gangster setting. I'm writing this after playing it for just a few days because I plan on shelving this for the time being (Since this is a civ type game, there's just a lot going on and there's a lot to play before the end of the year) but this game so far is pretty good. It's nowhere near as polished as it should be, there are a lot of weird bugs and clunky mechanics and odd design choices but playing this on console, I give it some benefit of the doubt that this was probably not made with a console in mind and more for PC. The bugs and clunkiness are really its biggest problem. I'd have business info pop up in a mini box that just would constantly pop up and get in the way of reading things. Even if I closed the game or some menus, it would eventually come up. The A.I. would do things like set up a business agreement with me, then back out of it immediately, then try and start the same deal back up, only to then leave it immediately, same with truces and other things (though sometimes this wouldn't happen of course). Moving to different zones in the game (this game is broken up in various Chicago neighborhoods) is incredibly awkward as well. For example, if I'm in my main group moving around and get attacked at a business, I'd get dropped into that battle. But, once I would finish that, I would just be stuck in that building without a clean and easy way to get back to my main crew who I was just controlling (I eventually found a work around to this but this sort of thing shouldn't require a work around). Overall though, it's a kinda cool premise and the mix of setting and game genres works to its benefit. There's a lot to move around in, there are a lot of other gangs to interact/choose from, the models look pretty good, and it plays relatively well despite the mechanical issues and bugs. Definitely a lower of the line 3.5 but it just manages to creep up, though some of these issues over a longer playthrough could obviously affect things.