In The Darkness, your goal is to walk up to mob goons, blow holes through their skulls, then rip into their chests and feed their hearts to demon snakes attached to your torso. Adding to the gruesome effects are terrific visual details.
The story: Your mobster "uncle" puts a hit on you. Instead, you execute his gangsters with relative ease. You walk streets, buildings and cemeteries of the big city, taking out one dumb thug after another in this glorified arcade gunner.
The Darkness can disappoint you quite a bit with lots of slow, boring walking, and orders to shoot streetlights. Yawn. I also had problems playing the game online. All the players kept getting stuck in walking positions. The computer servers couldn't seem to handle either the traffic or graphics.
Having said that, I think The Darkness marks another small evolutionary step, bringing a more cinematic look and feel to gaming.