A confession: I've never played the original and much-lauded Syndicate game, from 1993. So, when I say that EA's reimagining barely progresses beyond mediocrity, I should make it clear that this opinion is not one shrouded by misty-eyed nostalgia.

The setting is a nihilistic, corporate-owned future, where addiction to tech has led to a world where cranial implants have replaced iPhones and political power has been superseded by the stock market. Playing as an enhanced agent of the monolithic EuroCorp, players perform hostile takeovers through the medium of bullets to the head. The ability to hack remotely into enemies' brain chips – turning them into ersatz grenades – or activate devices from afar is the sole differentiating factor from most other first-person shooters.

Syndicate has all the ingredients to be gripping science fiction but instead feels like regurgitated parts of any number of generic dystopias and in recent gaming gaming terms, Deus Ex. There are good ideas here, but it's few surprises, worth renting at best.