Is it just me, or are about 80 percent of recent games first-person shooters? And for every must-play (“Killzone3”, “Black Ops”), there are three that’ll make you cry yourself to sleep just trying to forget them (“Goldeneye 007” for the Wii). Kaos Studio’s “Homefront” falls somewhere in between. Great storyline and fun set pieces, but an incredibly short single-player campaign and unpolished gameplay leave this much-hyped title fighting for air in the overcrowded FPS marketplace. “Homefront”, written by John Milius (“Red Dawn”, “Apocalypse Now”), starts off with a bang. The year is 2027, and the United States, weakened by economic collapse and avian flu, has been jointly invaded by North and South Korea — the Korean People’s Army. With an EMP blast and full-scale blitzkrieg, we have ourselves a “Red Dawn” situation. Internment camps, beatings and the wholesale execution of your neighbors really put an emotional charge behind every round you fire. In fact, the story is truly the highlight of this game. In addition to an emotionally captivating story, Kaos delivers good variety at each level: standard FPS full-scale firefight, stealth/sniper mission, mission providing air support to ground troops, mission handing you the controls of a tank-like drone named Goliath. The normal firefight fare never gets stale thanks to these diversions. On the other hand, the firefights never gets stale because there aren’t enough of them. To beat this game on its normal setting will take you all of five hours, and only about two more on the very hardest setting (most of which, by the way, is not fighting but following your resistance teammate like one of Mary’s little lambs). That’s simply not enough. There are some people still out there who truly don’t give a shit about the “expanded” multiplayer experience, and I, for one, am among them. If I’m going to shell out $60 for a video game, it better damn well take me longer to beat than it takes to watch “Forrest Gump” twice. Another thing that really chapped my ass about this game was the gameplay itself. The fact that I would get caught up on the environment at least once a checkpoint is ridiculous in 2011. I had to reset the game on a few occasions because I became stuck in a half-opened door. Come on, man. In addition, many times after lining up a shot between an enemy’s eyes and pulling the trigger, I wouldn’t see his head exploding like a watermelon at a Gallagher show. Instead, I’d see…nothing. Tell me, dear reader, am I out of line for thinking an FPS game should at least have its goddamn shooting mechanic working? Am I some horribly misguided soul for believing that the act of aiming should be the one thing I shouldn’t have to pull my hair out over in an FPS? When an enemy was standing directly to the right of me in “Contra”, I’d hit “A” and he’d be running down the curtain and joining the choir invisible. So why not 24 years later? The multiplayer component of this game is middle-of-the-road as well, and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. You have your team death match and your capture/defend game modes. Battle points are assessed for each kill, and can be used to purchase perks such as vehicles. One cool thing about the multiplayer system: If one player starts racking up a huge kill chain, they become marked on everyone’s HUD map. It eliminates snipers camping out as well as putting a target on the back of elite players. This game has some very cool features, but it’s weighed down by the overall lack of gameplay finesse. And frankly, it’s just too damn short. Don’t buy this game, and only rent it if you need to kill a few hours.