It really speaks to how bland a game is that after you beat it, the only good points you can recall are the cool spiral bullet trails and how pretty the lens flare is.

Battle: Los Angeles is a slapped-together shooter that’ll take you less time to finish than it does to watch the movie it’s based on — and it’ll cost you almost the same amount of money. Each mission has you navigating bland environments clogged with destroyed cars or debris, funneling you to the next brief firefight against recycled aliens. Sporadic cool moments, like seeing a helicopter chase after a UFO, wind up diluted by banal escort missions and repetitive mounted-gun shooting galleries.

Even worse are glitches like when an essential teammate disappeared on us, forcing us to reload a checkpoint to progress. And though it’s a small gripe, Achievements don’t stack, meaning you’ll have to play through on each difficulty to unlock Gamerscore and gameplay tweaks such as double physics (which affects seemingly nothing). We don’t predict many 200s.

On Xbox Live Arcade

+ Some neat scripted events; fast-paced gameplay.

- Overwhelmingly bland graphics and environments.

- Insipid story and comic-book cutscenes; you’ll beat it in an hour.

? Was this game released on a Friday (like Days of Thunder: Arcade), instead of the typical XBLA Wednesday, to hide it?

5.0