GameSpy reviews Hellgate: London and concludes:
"In the end, those who sank hundreds of hours into Diablo and Diablo II or even those looking for a relatively light, enjoyable action RPG will find a lot to enjoy in the 20-hour or so single-player campaign or the free co-op system (once the inevitable series of patches address the bugs). But for those who didn't, the short-lived mindless monster-killing corpse-looting joy just won't be enough to finish the basic story, to say nothing of a monthly subscription. If the development team had poured half the creativity and personality into the setting, character, content or story as they did into the fighting and looting, the game might have become a modern-day classic. Instead, what comes out of this Hellgate often feels a little underwhelming."
Pros:
+ Enjoyable combat
+ Varied classes
+ Tons of fun randomized loot
+ Decent storyline
+ Fun single-player campaign
Cons:
- Badly implemented multiplayer component
- Bugs
- Slowdowns and crashes
- Randomized levels
- Boring quests.
Multiplayer: Fair
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5) - Fair
Before Flagship Studios, there was Blizzard North. Originally known as Condor, the Redwood-based studio was acquired in 1997 by Blizzard Entertainment. At the time, Blizzard North was hard at work on the development of the game that would be the cornerstone of everything that came after: Diablo.
IGN : Remember Hellgate: London? The dark fantasy action role-playing game came out in 2007 for PC, a year before developer Flagship Studios went bankrupt. Since then, various free-to-play and online revivals have come and gone. Now, 17 years after the release of Hellgate: London, it’s back.
I remember some friends and I all bought Hellgate: London day one because it was made by some original Diablo devs. We had fun playing it, good memories.
PC Invasion: Hellgate: London is back on Steam, but it's not what you expect it to be. It's a single-player game in the vein of Asian MMOs.
so this games a flop.
I don't agree on the grade that Gamespy gave HGL, but they SHOULD have waited a month or two with release. Fix all bugs, maing it more polished and ready. Some 7-8/10 or 4/5 or so is what the game is worth now, imo. It could have been 9/10 or 5/5...
When you release a game it's to late, any bugs or glitches should be reviewed. A dev can't say wait untill out first patch before you review. Thats like when Sony was pushing a rereview for LAIR, to late is to late. They should have thought about that before release, "like it or not" it's fair. I didn't like the low scores Shadowrun got because the gameplay is fantastic but I understand the low scores do to the lack of content in the game.