Deserves a chance just for being so unique. Visuals aside, it delivers standard gameplay with good story elements.
Music: Awesome dramatic, battle, techno, jazz and funk styles. Great stuff.
Sound: Voice overs are pretty pleasing. In game sound effects seem pretty poor. There seemed to be problems with 3d sound positioning (A guy sounding like he's in the distance on your left, but he is in the opposite direction to the right. Many of the powerful machine guns had extremely annoying overblown sounds... to the point where you didn't want to use those weapons.
Story: Refreshing twists to the whole spy and consipiracy themes. Can't wait for the sequel. The game centers around you being an agent who knows certain information (like the identity of people) but you start the game with amnesia and pick up your memories along the way.
Gameplay/Mechanics/Controls: Presentation and story aside, this is a standard FPS with hardly any innovation. The only thing it brings out are comic-book themed elements such as seeing a "tap tap tap" in the general direction of someone walking behind a wall and picture-in-picture windows appearing to show important events or information.
XIII delivers a refreshing twist for FPS and spy/conspiracy games, with a funky and lasting comic-book like presentation that doesn't grow old. Audio effects could have used more work, and weapons/puzzles could be beefed up as well.