This game is a good over the shoulder, 3rd person shooter, but my god, it is not a resident evil game, and if you've ever played a Resi game before RE4, your going to be in for a disapointment.
The graphics are good, and the sounds are pretty standard. The Vs mode and mercanaries are REALLY good, and saves the game essentially, where u can have hours of endless fun on your own or paired up, and so if you like that its a decent buy and probably worth it. Its pretty much your average Run and Gun, which might be your thing, and if you don't like heavy plots but mowing down repetitive swarms of enemies then you like it too.
However if you've played RE0, RE1, RE2, RE3, RE; Code Veronica, the game makes little or no sense, where there are officially no zombies... ever.... all gone, you get some lickers but thats about it. Instead you get to try and shoot some really unscary nutters (usually in t-shirts and shorts) hopping all over the place, in bright well lit area's, making it look more like the local football fans are trying to have a riot, rather than you're in the middle of a terrifying scene of bio-terrorism and monsters. Its pointless to use about 1/3rd of all the weapons in the game, such as the machine gun, as they do barely any damage and you rely on your partner to dish out the damage or become a decoy, making you waste ammo, time and effort.
There is virtually no suspense to the game either, the levels are all in straight lines, with a very clear begining and end, and about 3 puzzles in the whole game. That is not what a resident evil is!! Resident evil's had back tracking and puzzles, high-tech labs and classic mansions, what RE5 has in a few run down villages and some grotty underground ruins, with no suspense and no scares, where you can complete the game very quickly and be sick of the plot, which doesn't really sync up with either the general plot of the Resi series, or with RE4 either. The characters are flat and your partner pretty useless other than being a decoy or somewhere to dump your ammo.
Whilst the whole resident evil series has had a pretty outlandish and comic-bookish style to it, RE5 takes it too far and doesn't really deliver, just making the whole thing seem like a poor adaptation or spin off of the originals... its like the RE series is the show 'Friends' and RE5 is the spin off show 'Joey'; where its trying to take the bits people like, but make it too shallow and cobbled together.
However as you can tell this is a really bias review, i'm a fan of survival horrors, like the orignal RE and Dead Space, and so thats why i think this isn't really a RE. BUT its got its good points, the Merc and Vs modes are awsome, and gives a lot more re-play value, with mindless run and gun tactics. However if you want a game with some actual depth DON'T get this game, get any of the original RE games, quite a few have been remade for the Wii and GC.