Left 4 Dead is a First Person Shooter that pits four survivors against endless waves of the undead. The thing that sets this game apart from ther FPS games is teamwork, no matter how good you are, you need to stay with the group to survive and that's where the game shines. The levels are well thought out and follow a linear path (beginning, middle and end), but multiple paths can be taken to get to the end of level. Left 4 Dead also features what's called an AI Director which means zombies will never come from exactly the same place. You may be overwhelmed in a subway one game and find nothing there the next. Online play is where this game really shines - having three other people controlling your the other survivors adds a tactical edge that I have not seen in other games of this type.

Your enemies in this game are hordes of mindless zombies and five hero zombies (four of which can be played in the online versus match).  These are not NotLD zombies - these guys are after you at top speed once they see you.

The two things that hurt this game are the lack of weapon variety and the lack of an overarching story. Weapons-wise, you get shotguns, pistols, machine guns and a couple explosives.  While each level has a basic "we have to get here to escape" storyline, there is nothing deeper than that. There are rumors of these issues being adressed in future downloadable content, but that is only in rumor form right now.

I am going to give this game two ratings. One for your average man on the street and one for the people who love zombies as much as I do.

For the Zombie Fan this game get's a solid 4-out-of-5.

For the Average Joe, this game gets 3-out-of-5 due to the lack of weapon variety and story might turn them off a bit.