ShadowRun is the first game on the Xbox 360 and PC to feature cross-platform play, using Games for Windows-LIVE and Xbox Live.

The games story generally revolves around a Texas-Technology tycoon whose company grows to be the largest in the world, and eventually opens up a lucrative "security" division.
(Which happens in 2006 in the ShadowRun timeline)

During this time period of 2006-2015 a horrible disease that wipes out a quarter of the worlds population, also during this period a unexplained genetic mutation effects new-borns across the world, who are either short and stocky[Dwarves] or tall with pointed ears[Elves].

A great Dragon is spotted flying around a mountain in Japan, which according to the storyline means magic has returned to the world.

Long story short Magic takes rest for a couple thousand years, famine disease and genetic mutations strike the planet aswell as corporate fascism and control, magic returns to the world and in 2031-Brazil after a half-decade of effort RNA corporation finally seizes the Santos Ziggurat which contains a high-amount of artifacts and magical energy which the Lineage has sought to defend for century's.
(If you'd like to take a more-indepth look at the story, buy the game and look at the purty manual, or http://shadowrun.com/storyguide/)

While an interesting story, this game has no single-player thus restricting itself to be reviewed as a Multi-player shooter, no coop or story campaigns here.

The game has 4 races you can choose before the start of a game, Humans, Elves, Trolls, Dwarves.

Each race has it's own advantages and disadvantages, for instance Elves are the only race that can regenerate health, but also have the lowest total health so if cornered, you're dead.

There's alot of strategy involved when picking a race, alot of factors go in like what races your team picked, what magic and technologies do you want to use, what will your role be, support or assault, etc.

The races are extremely well balanced since each race fulfills team roles.

There's up to 11 rounds in each game, the first team to reach 6 wins has won the game.

The game modes are:
Raid which the Lineage must grab the artifact and escape to the drop-point.

Extraction where both RNA global and the Lineage must either kill each other or escape with the artifact.

And Attrition which is basically deathmatch where the artifacts only use is that you are allowed to see all enemy players on the map, but they can see where the artifact holder is. The artifact can also be held at the end of the game in attrition will also win the game, which is a longshot win for teams with only one player left.

Raid is usually played a little bit more than Extraction while Attrition is fairly/more popular in private games and dedicated servers depending.

The first thing you'll see when you enter a real-live multiplayer game is a buy screen which makes you think of Counter Strike all the way.

Every race starts out with 2 thousand dollars except for Humans which start with 2500.

You have the option of buying Weapons, Magic, Technolagy, or giving money to Teammates.

Magic and tech stay with you for the whole game, while weapons will be dropped on the ground if you die and not return the next round unless you are resurrected and you pick them up.
(Assuming the other team hasn't stolen them from your corpse)

There's a variety of 7 magics and 5 technolagys, your ability to use magic is governed by your amount of essence AKA your pixie dust meter.

Dwarves have the most essence but recharge is extremely slow, and Elves cannot recharge essence while they are healing.

The more tech you have on you, the more it will affect how much magic you can cast.

Resurrection is one of the most infulentional powers in the outcome of a game, rez gives the player the ability to bring a teammate back to life if the enemy has not destroyed his body after the enemy killed him.

Rez will not allow you to use a certain amount of magic in your essence bar aslong as that teammate stays alive.

The variety of magic and tech puts a huge spin on the Multi-FPS formula, in a good and addictive way.

Weapons varry from machine guns, rifles, and the only melee weapon, the Katana.

Without going into engrossing detail any longer the Races, Weapons, Magic, and Tech are near perfectly balenced and theres always a way to counter-attack.

The game requires a pretty hefty system but can be run on any modern-gaming system easily.

The graphics are not realistic, but focus more on a artistic fun-styled prowess which works well, the game doesn't make you go WOW but it doesn't make you not notice itself either.

The games main problem is the lack of maps, theres only 9 maps which 2 of are alterations, there are few bugs but the main ones I noticed was definitely server lag on GFW-LIVE Gold Service where a 360 player will be the server instead of a dedicated machine hosting.

The dedicated servers are almost always empty except for 2 or 3 of the total 14 when I checked during my playing. This doesn't give you much of a option but to buy or to atleast tryout the free month of GFW-LIVE you get. The voice quality of player-to-player on GFW-LIVE is apalling, our real-life audio comparison revealed it's worse than the lowest codec on TeamSpeak. [CELP 5.1Kb]

The matchmaking is great, but the party system has alot of bugs where soemtimes you will have problems getting someone in, or they will keep dropping out of the party for no explained reason.(Not even a error message) This can get annoying but doesn't get in the way of your experience most of the time.

Amidst the problems the game proves itself to be a very solid, invovled shooter that requires a nice amount of strategy and teamwork opposed to just mindlessly running and gunning.

Overall the graphics look great, the gameplays great, theres a few flaws with the multiplayer service. The games engine would've made a very dry single player game however at least some bot matchs based on the series story would've been nice.

I haven't been able to take my hands off this game since I bought it, and amidst the lower quality of PC multiplayer, the wide use of mics is a nice change.

Pros:
Great gameplay, especially when teamwork is applied.
Great graphics.
Wonderful spin on the Multi-shooter mold.

Cons:
Variety of maps.
GFW-LIVE can come up dry at times.
System requirements are a bit hefty.