Early run-throughs of Silicon Knights’ upcoming game Too Human have drawn interesting responses from critics.

Creator Denis Dyack has already promised that story will be essential to his upcoming opus, following the tradition of past Silicon Knights games such as cult classic Eternal Darkness.

Chris Kohler at Wired enjoyed Too Human’s story, a cyberpunk retelling of Norse mythology, but saw combat gameplay, not story, as the game’s main drive.

“Too Human is not the story-driven Silicon Knights title that we, the long-suffering fans of Eternal Darkness, have been waiting for these last five years,” says Kohler.

“Just as I came to grips with the gameplay,” Kohler adds, “and just as the story seemed as if it was starting to ramp up into overdrive — the game ended.” He took ten hours to finish Too Human’s campaign, which ends in a cliffhanger.

Tycho at Penny-Arcade took a more leisured fourteen hours to finish the game and was more satisfied with his experience.

“Somewhere between Blade Runner and Lord of the Rings there is a powerful venue for storytelling, and they have found it,” writes Tycho. He adds that in Silicon Knights games, “technology and gameplay are important, but it is the purpose of the latter two to reinforce the story.”

The game’s main character Baldur must defend humanity against evil machines and maintain an internal balance of lifeless cybernetic enhancements and human flesh. The player can chose between Baldur’s human or cybernetic strengths, and that choice influences both plot and gameplay.

“They’ve made a kind of cyberpunk Diablo, with a fast combat system and a deep world,” says Tycho. “It’s not perfect. But it’s much, much better than I expected.”

Make up your own mind when Too Human is released on August 5.