Homefront

Homefront imagines a bleak, near-future scenario: a unified Korean regime has invaded and occupied the western United States following a crippling EMP attack, and players join a ragtag resistance movement fighting block by block to take suburban America back. This review sample confirms the game's premise remains genuinely striking more than a decade later, while surfacing a widely repeated, specific complaint about just how little of it players actually get to experience over the course of a full purchase.

A setting reviewers say lands harder than most military shooters

The praise here centers specifically on atmosphere and premise rather than gunplay. "Homefront was the most over-advertised and under-purchased game of its time," one reviewer writes, "but it has some brilliant cinematography moments, a solid shooting engine, good storyline." Reviewers consistently credit the discomfort of seeing familiar suburban American streets turned into an occupied warzone as more affecting than the usual overseas settings the genre typically reaches for. One reviewer, prompted to finally check the game out after a modern military shooter announced a similarly themed plot over a decade later, notes with some irony that the once-dismissed premise "here we are... with people not trusting" the geopolitical assumptions it made feel considerably less far-fetched than critics found it at the time.

A widely repeated, specific complaint about length

Set against that praise, this review sample converges with unusual consistency on one specific issue: how short the campaign actually is. "The campaign is PAINFULLY short. My first playthrough on the default difficulty only took 3 hours, and I was in no rush. This is inexcusable," one detailed reviewer writes, recommending the game only "if you find it for $5 or less." That's not an isolated complaint — it recurs independently across a large share of this sample, treated consistently as the single biggest factor holding the game back from a stronger recommendation despite genuine praise for what content does exist.

Heavy-handed messaging, according to some reviewers

Beyond length, a smaller but specific critique concerns tone. "The game is far too forceful with the 'oo look how terrible war is' feeling," one reviewer writes, arguing that instead of being subtly led toward any conclusion, players "just feel like you're constantly being struck by a moral hammer." That's a fair, specific stylistic complaint distinct from the length issue, and it's worth noting that not every reviewer who enjoys the setting is equally convinced by how directly the game delivers its anti-war themes, even as the premise itself continues to draw genuine praise for its sheer boldness relative to more conventional entries in the genre.

A specific, documented crash in the opening mission

A separate, more concrete technical problem affects the very start of the game. Multiple reviewers report a specific, reproducible crash triggered during the tutorial sequence, with one describing it directly: after being told to "pick up that gun" early in the opening mission, the game crashed three separate times, blocking any further progress. That's worth checking current fixes for directly before starting, since it affects the literal first few minutes of play rather than a rare, late-game edge case, and it's a frustrating first impression for a game whose opening act otherwise draws such strong praise.

What the completion data adds

Steam's achievement statistics offer a useful independent read on the campaign-length complaint. Early story achievements sit above 65% of the tracked playerbase, but the schema's harder, presumably multiplayer- or completionist-tied achievements fall away sharply to around 3-3.5%. The relatively high early completion rate, compared to the sharp drop toward harder achievements, is at least consistent with a short single-player campaign that a large share of buyers see through completely, with the much deeper drop-off concentrated specifically in multiplayer or optional content rather than the main story itself. As with several other older titles in this catalogue, the schema here returns only generic internal identifiers rather than readable names, so this review can describe the general shape of that curve without tying it to specific missions.

A troubled development history and an uncertain multiplayer future

It's worth noting the wider context around this game's creation and its current state. Homefront was developed under real creative and budget pressure at THQ, and its screenplay was written by John Milius, the screenwriter behind Red Dawn and Apocalypse Now — a detail some reviewers specifically reference when discussing why the setup, if not the full campaign, still carries real weight. On the multiplayer side, this being an older, THQ-published title means server population and matchmaking reliability may vary considerably depending on when you check, and this review can't independently confirm current multiplayer activity levels; anyone specifically buying for online play should check recent player counts and matchmaking activity directly before purchase, rather than assuming the multiplayer mode reviewers praised at launch remains equally populated and reliable today.

Where it lands

Homefront earns real, specific credit for a genuinely distinctive, uncomfortable setting and a strong opening act that reviewers consistently single out as the game's high point. The widely repeated complaint about the campaign's short length is concrete and consistent enough to weigh heavily against the asking price, and the documented tutorial-mission crash is worth researching a fix for before starting. For military shooter fans specifically drawn to its premise, this remains worth a look at a discount; at full price, the well-corroborated length concerns are hard to justify, no matter how effectively the opening hours land emotionally.