Ballistics Report

Pros

Old-school flavor
If you're a fan of merciless game design and serious consequences for failure, Shadowgrounds is a dream.

Sound
The music is bad and the speech is worse, but the weapons are strangely satisfying. It's not the ear candy that Half-Life 2 is, but a subtle simplicity with an arcade game tone.

Graphics
The graphics aren't spectacular or even particularly modern, but they're serviceable and the shader effects are done almost as well as the impressive lighting model. Mostly though, I think I like the gibs.

Co-op
Few games offer co-op nowadays, Shadowgrounds is mercifully one of them. Playing together takes away a lot of the frustration and makes the game a little easier.

Cons

Difficulty
Gamers today just expect more refined gaming experiences. We're not masochists driven to win at any cost.

Design issues
Even if you take the difficulty out of it, the sick idea of not having saves in the middle of a level - or even save points - needs to be mentioned. It's one thing having consequences for death, but this is unnecessary sadism.