Interesting story idea, always nice to play the bad guy for once. This is the third in a very successful series so my expectations were high.

Architecturally this was a nice level. Although the level used the familiar spaceport-city theme there was always something extra put in. For example, there was a room with a garden, complete with moving plants and a river down the middle. One part of the level was set in a library, which was well detailed with books and bookshelves. Little details like this around the map made it quite interesting visually and this was only improved by the texturing. Like the architecture, detail was the main focus. I don't think there was a single place in the level which looked plain or boring. There was a wide range of different textures which the author used to give the level a 'busy' look, perfect for the feel of the level. I did, however, feel that parts of this texture scheme were quite similar to that found in other MotS levels of this type and I do think a bit more originality could have been used in places. This was only in a few places though, generally it was great(especially the gardens). This level was well laid out, not linear like most levels. As far as I could tell the player could do the objectives in any order they wanted. I enjoyed that sort of freedom in the level, it reminded me of the spaceport levels from MotS(probably the best LEC levels ever, in terms of gameplay anyway). If I had to say something bad about the layout then I'd have to say some areas were a bit cramped, particularly the indoor areas. This was not a major issue however and it didn't affect the levels 'play'.

Unfortunately the enemy placement in this level was not the greatest. The enemies were spread through the level well enough but I thought they were a bit too easy to kill, mainly because they were placed too predictably. They also didn't seem to move around very much, they just waited until you came near them. A level seems a lot more 'alive' if the characters in it move around in a realistic way, which would have greatly improved this level. Likewise, there were far too many powerups in this level, which also made it too easy. I always had more than enough health and I never had any worries about getting killed, let alone running out of ammo.

The atmosphere of the level was pretty good, it would have been better if it had been harder. There was no 'fear-factor' which some levels have, there was never any point where the player had to really be careful with their ammo or their health. The puzzles unfortunately didn't help this either. They were all nicely implemented puzzles but there was nothing really that hadn't been done before. The level tended towards a 'key-hunt'. But, like I mentioned, it wasn't at all linear, which helped the player forget about the somewhat bland puzzles and let them explore some of the more interesting parts of the level. The background characters are an excellent example of this because of the way they gave the city a bit of 'depth'. The player gets the feeling that each citizen and building has it's own little story to tell, and I liked that about this level. The lighting in this level was also a major contributing factor in it's atmosphere. While I felt that in some places there was an over use of color it usually was subtle and gave the level a nice mood. Particularly the garden outside Aranthol's home but in other places as well. I'm happy to say that technically this level was fine, no huge framerate drops, no nasty bugs and no graphical glitches.

A good level and I recommend it but don't expect anything amazingly exciting gameplay-wise. I should mention that this level was done for a level contest and it only had a short time to be built in, but for what it turned out to be it is excellent. I'm sure that if there had been more time spent on it to polish it off it would have been even better.