For the simple fact is that for everything right about R6V2 (as the game shall henceforth be known) there's something wrong. In some cases very wrong. And so in every section of this review you'll find a real mix of good and bad.

In this gameplay section, the first thing I have to say is that getting the game 'set up' to play seems to take an eternity - especially once you've taken into account the 52MB 'patch' that's already been issued for the game.

The good news kicks off with the fact that R6V2 still does a decent job of presenting you with a slightly more cerebral shooter than usual.

The chief reason for this is that you play the vast majority of the main campaign with a squad of two 'helpers' who will move where you want them to and 'engage tangos' in whatever manner you see fit. This totally changes your approach to dealing with a location compared to what you'd do if you were playing a standard FPS. What's more, your helpers are genuinely useful, seeming able to take way more punishment than you can before they hit the deck.

In fact, in theory it's possible to complete a level without raising your own rifle at all, just leaving all the bad guys to your squad to mop up.

A solid understanding of what makes squad-based shooters tick can be seen in some of the game's level designs too, as they occasionally manage to build up some really tense and tactical gunfights that can last so long they make the botched bank heist in Heat feel like an episode of the Magic Roundabout. The Villa level is a particular favourite in this respect.

So where does the gameplay go wrong? Well, for starters pretty much every aspect of the game feels surprisingly and annoyingly lightweight compared with the original. Neither the story nor the game's characters, for instance, ever engage you at any kind of remotely deep level. As a result, you seldom if ever feel any kind of emotional commitment to the sequel in the way you did with the original.

The game is over far too quickly, too, and seldom presents nearly as much of a challenge as the original.

It doesn't help the general lack of intensity when playing the story mode, either, that as I suggested earlier, you can get away for great chunks of the game with doing very little yourself other than pointing your team at a door and choosing the 'clear room' option. In other words, your squad is almost too good, leaving you often just idling around a corner distant from where the real action's at, waiting for all the work to be done before you even bother turning up.

This can make sections of the game feel like a thrill-free grind that only liven up when your squad mates both get injured, requiring you to wade in all guns blazing to rescue their sorry asses.

Tellingly, by far my favourite section of the story mode was Act 6, where suddenly you no longer have a squad, and so have to battle through a seriously tricky furnaces/oil refinery section all on your lonesome. Having to kill every last terrorist by myself made this single level more intense and exhilarating than the rest of the game put together.

I'm not saying here that the whole idea of a squad-based shooter is flawed. As I said earlier, I loved the original Rainbow Six Vegas, and I'm a fan of the GRAW series too. It's just that the balance of the combat just isn't right in this sequel, making much of the game a simple case of 'direct squad to door, instruct them to flashbang and clear the room, move to the next door, and repeat. And repeat. And repeat...'

This sense of repetitiveness is especially true, ironically, if you choose to play on the game's hardest 'Realistic' level, as I did. For here the fact that a single bullet can do you in makes the urge to sit back and let your squad inch through a room for you not only hard to resist, but pretty much a necessity. When I compare this situation with the visceral intensity of playing the original game on Realistic, where your squad depended as much on you as you did on them, it starts to make that £50 you're supposed to cough up for R6V2 look a bit of a joke.

Don't get me wrong; R6V2's story mode isn't a total disaster. It still has some class moments and the 'shooting from cover' trick helps deliver some really epic 'dug in' pitched battles. Plus I like the new 'sprinting' feature that's appeared in the sequel, even if I only used it about three times in Story mode; and the idea that you get awarded experience points during online and offline play that help 'level up' your character in almost role-playing game fashion works well.

For me, though, the real heart of the game - and a sign of what might have been with the story mode - are the Terrorist Hunt levels. Tellingly, these story-free co-op or single player exercises in simply clearing a set number of terrorists from a specific location without dying are a million times tenser than practically any part of the story mode. Plus they support co-op play for up to four mates when the story mode only supports two.

In fact, if it wasn't for the Terrorist Hunt option the Gameplay score for R6V2 would be at least a couple of marks lower than it is.

One last little gameplay point worth mentioning here is that unlike the vast majority of PS3 games to date, R6V2 features an ‘achievement’ system, where you unlock medals and badges for achieving certain feats within the game. These feats can include merely finishing a level, killing five enemies in a row with headshots, killing a certain amount of enemies during online games, and so on.

This is all well and good, but unfortunately Ubisoft has failed to back the earning of the achievements up with any kind of significant reward, such as a chunk of extra character-development XP points. So unless you’re obsessed with the idea of seeing all the achievements’ initially empty ‘badge’ graphics filled in (an obsession which would, of course, make you a total freak), it’s difficult to see why anyone is going to really spend much extra time with R6V2 just to rack these achievements up.

In fact, the only area of R6V2 which might earn it real longevity is its online play, which as you will see from our Online Elements section is flawed but still reasonably addictive. But even this just about passable online section doesn’t stop the game feeling far more like an expansion pack than a new game in its own right.

After the aesthetic delights of some recent shooters - Call Of Duty 4 inevitably springs to mind - the graphics for the vast majority of R6V2's locations feel bland, flat, textureless, strangely cartoony and even a touch 'last-gen'. At best they look like they live in some kind of no-man's land between the standard def PS2 and the high def PS3.

In fact, because of the relatively bland locations the game mostly insists on putting you in versus the glamorous casinos of R6V1, I'd say the graphics look worse than they did on the original!

If you try and look beyond the often overwhelming feeling of blandness, though, there is actually quite a bit to appreciate about R6V2's use of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine graphics system.

For starters, the world feels commandingly solid and three dimensional, and thus the graphical handling of enemies - and indeed yourself - ducking in and out of cover over even very large areas works superbly well.

The level of interactivity with your environment is good too, as a surprising number of objects can be accidentally pushed over or knocked around. This makes the environment feel more 'alive', as well as providing one or two healthy scares as your squad members accidentally nudge a flower pot behind you.

The graphics look reasonably crisp, with no unnecessary blurring effect, and the animation and designs of both your squad members and the terrorists are impressive. It really is just that underlying lack of detail and texture subtlety - along with some curious colour choices - that lets the side down.

The voice acting is decent enough too, considering the paucity of the script, and somehow the various little bits of banter and 'yes sir' type stuff with your squad doesn't sound as repetitive as you'd expect given the rather monotonous nature of the game itself.

The only real annoyances are the 'permanent gunfire' glitch I experienced quite regularly during online play, and the way voices are easily drowned out during cut scenes, making what puny amount of story there is even harder to follow or care about.

Concerns start as soon as you hit the 'game-finding' menus, as you're presented with a dull list of currently joinable games that you have to manually select a game from. After Call Of Duty 4 and Halo 3, this sort of manual approach seems time-consuming, clumsy and just plain unnecessary. For all you really want is for the best quality, most readily joinable game to be found automatically for you, rather than you having to scroll manually through dozens of options yourself looking for a game with enough people already in it to make it fun but which doesn't respond with a 'server at capacity' message when you try to join.

Once you've finally got yourself into a game, the problems continue. I experienced a slight but noticeable lag during many of the games I played, which can make them feel slightly staccato, imprecise and even a touch nauseating if you're using a really big screen. Plus I regularly suffered a really annoying glitch where constant gunfire goes off in the rear speakers, and found that voices are regularly distorted during team matches.

Still, while not as perfect as it should be given the utter majesty and lag-free fluidity Call Of Duty 4 delivers online, the PS3's R6V2 online element seldom lags so badly that it’s actually unplayable, and can even be quite enjoyable at times.

That said, even when you get a really perfect connection, R6V2's online multiplayer can seem a touch sluggish and restrictive in these post COD4 days. And nowhere near as much thought has gone into elements that might have made the game more intense, such as COD4's terrific system of highlighting enemies on a map when they fire an unsilenced weapon. In the end, as with so much of R6V2, its online element feels like something that might have blown us away 18 months ago, but now feels just a little dated.

There is one area where R6V2’s online functionality really works, though, and that’s with co-op play. The main story is definitely more enjoyable with a friend in tow – though why you can’t have two friends in tow as you could with R6V1 is anyone’s guess. But co-op reaches its highest point during the Terrorist Hunt missions, partly because up to three friends can join you for these rather than the stingy one allowed in story mode, and partly because the Terrorist Hunts are actually way more fun – and challenging – than the main story mode.