Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Anniversary Edition

The game is incredibly fun to play, although it’s unfortunate that the campaign is so short. Its not a negative per-se. I just wish it had lasted at least half as long again as what I’ve already played, because it is so fun to play.

So, what makes this game so fun? The action! Shooting orcs and chaos forces—it’s as simple as that.

There’s not much more to it, because when you start looking at other aspects of the game, they don’t stand out in the same way. The environments are quite bland, lacking detail or interesting features. Too often, you’re running through these unremarkable empty corridors for several minutes, not talking to anyone or encountering anything interesting. No, you just run. I think, these parts of the game served a purpose though. Though invisible for us - players. I think they were meant to give the game time to load assets. However, while the environments are underwhelming, the meticulously designed Space Marine armors make up for it. You can’t help but admire their detail as you dash through those empty corridors.

The story is simple but effective. There are some lore pieces scattered across the levels in the form of audiologs, but these are easy to miss, which can take away from the already sparse lore on top of the simple main narrative. What's particularly frustrating to me is that some of these audiologs are tied to important character in the main story. Not wanting to miss them, I often found myself wandering around levels hunting for them instead of focusing on decimating more orcs. That said, it wasn’t a huge issue, since the story isn’t the main draw of the game.

Now, I realize what I’ve written might sound more critical than positive. And yes, there are definite flaws. But, honestly, none of that really matters because the action - the core of the game, is just so much fun. It completely overshadows any negatives you might find.

Played it primarily for the story before the second game. Story is good enough. Combat is fun and looks quite cool. Only movement is a bit clunky and I got stuck quite often by an obstacle that seemed like it shoudn't stop me at all.

A perfect "7/10" experience.

Satisfying combat, both ranged AND melee, amazing setpieces, solid voice work and sound design. Loses a bit of steam in the second half but I believe everyone who enjoys action games and/or W40K should play it to completion at least once.

The Emperor Protects! This game, though a decade old, is still loads of fun. It hearkens back to a previous era in gaming, where third-person hack n'slash and shooter games dominated the gaming landscape, a la God of War and Gears of War.

Holy sweet Jesus, I wet myself while playing this game. THAT'S HOW AWESOME IT IS! 10/10 - Wish there were more campaign world missions.

It's worth a playthrough when it's on sale. Core gameplay is fun but doesn't change or evolve in any meaningful way, and controls can, at times, feel a bit slow and clunky (though not enough to be a deal breaker). The only thing that actually annoyed me is that all cutscenes aren't skippable and enemies can still hurt you while you execute an enemy (which also is the only way to recover health). Outside of that, there's not much to the plot that makes it memorable, and the two boss battles are a bit underwhelming. Overall, it's a fine game and I enjoyed it, but it's nothing remarkable.

Not a terrible game by any means though the combat becomes a bit repetitive towards the end of the campaign. If you remember that this was an Xbox game it is bad by no mean and it is like a 7/10.

for 10 buck it was an amazing play story wise

Fun game. Disappointed he never wears his helmet. Solid 7 out of 10 game and runs good on Steam Deck.

Can't even play. Crashes to desktop on startup. Tried running process lasso to limit cores, but that didn't help.

Update:
Had to copy a DLL file to the root install folder in order to get this to work. Still leaving this as a negative review since a fix isn't actually incorporated.

Es un buen juego, da mucha accion y peleas epicas, lo que si quiero criticar es la falta de lore, ya que no tiene una historia profunda, ya que si no sabes del lore de 40k, dudo que entiendas mucho de lo que dicen los personajes, ya despues de eso, el juego es entretenido.

My first exposure to Warhammer 40K was actually Space Marine 2 which I finished 2 weeks ago. I enjoyed it so much I decided to play the first game. It's delightfully simple to play. No skill trees or leveling up. Just different guns and a single ability that gets stronger as you go along. It works great with a controller and for less than $20.00 it is an awesome deal.

Pacing can be a bit dull, and combat unfair at times. But the story and many of the moments that join offer a great game you can't help but get from start to finish.

Fun game, but extremely repetitive. Combat is fun and satisfying, but the level design is very linear and the enemies are pretty braindead.

Good Warhammer game though

Get it on sale, this shit ain't worth 40 bucks

I just finished the game, what a trip !!!

I usually dont enjoy basic combat games, but one in 40k + being a space marine + playing as the legendary Titus, its just too epic !

Highly recommend

Amazing game. Graphics are amazing for how old the game is.

The combat is very interesting, its a mix of melee and shooting that works very well, the only bad thing are the visuals since they did not age very well

Really do recommend. It does get repetitive midway but thankfully things change enough to keep it fresh and pull the game to the end. Which the ending is absolutely worth it. Controls are pretty standard, story is pretty good, gameplay really fun although a bit challenging but as long as you get used to the mechanics you'll be fine. If you wan to play this before the second one (or third one or who knows how many in the future) then go ahead. This is 2025 so if you read this in 2050 I'll most likely have kicked the can but I would still give it a bony thumbs up.

This game holds up shockingly well. And not just in terms of gameplay. For a game that's about 10 years old at this point, the visuals are actually not bad. I would recommend to anyone who's thinking about trying out Space Marine 2 to make sure to play this game first. Not simply to get the beginning of Titus' story, but also because it's really just a solid game.

I was suprised at how good this game is while playing. I saw the trailer for this game earlier this year and thought it looked cool but most of the other Warhammer 40,000 games seem a little weird. so i bought it on sale for less than ten bucks and actualy found it to be enjoyable.

Still the same clunky piece of shit it was on release back in the day. Repetitive, doesn't run amazingly well on modern hardware, and the multiplayer is dead, but for the first decent 40K game, this shit was great and still provides a lot of fun.

If you spot this on sale, it's definitely worth picking up! I had a great time with the PS3 version years ago. The controls can feel a bit sluggish when using the power hammer, but overall, Space Marine is an enjoyable experience, especially on the easier difficulty setting.

For a game that's over a decade old, the graphics and sound still hold up really well.

Warhammer 40K Space Marine is one of the best TPS games I've ever played. Combat is fluid and fun, and the pace of the story is pretty good with all the weapons and abilities. For a game that's over a decade old, the graphics and sounds still hold up really well. Space Marine manages to remain entertaining from start to finish. The game lasts for about 10 to 15 hours which is just long enough. It may not be the best or most original action game, but it’s a fine first outing for the Space Marine series, and a rare gem for Warhammer fans. 8/10

Campaign was entertaining. Story was intriguing and the gameplay was highly enjoyable.

Every level is the same where you are only slashing and gunning down orks/beasts. Sounds boring but it really wasn't because it was challenging. You will encounter unique orks/beasts with different fighting powers/abilities and you will equip advance/high tech weapons to take them down, which could involve quite a bit of effort depending on the ork/beast. Reminded me of Doom (2016) but 3rd person.

The melee combat was very satisfying as well.

The more you play, the more enjoyable the combat becomes due to the fun increase in complexity of the weapons and orks/beasts. Couldn't stop playing.

Will definitely be playing the sequel. If you only want to play the campaign, I recommend buying it when discounted because the campaign isn't long. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Troubleshooting if required:

Had an installation issue where I was missing a file, which made me encounter a BugSplat error everytime I clicked play. Seems to be a common issue as well.

Doing the following fixed the issue for me:
1. Download the latest dll file from here: https://github.com/adrian-lebioda/SpaceMarineCoreFix/releases
2. Copy the dll file and paste it into the install directory of the game
3. Click play and hopefully you never encounter the error again (I didn't)

If the above steps don't work, then refer to the following resources as they have more support:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2023164262
https://steamcommunity.com/app/55150/discussions/0/3194742149943092971/

Also, you may have trouble changing the resolution due to bad UI design. If you want to change the resolution, you need to change the aspect ratio first (by clicking the arrows) AND then change the resolution (by clicking the arrows) to your preferred resolution (if your preferred resolution is in the list of resolutions for the selected aspect ratio)

I tried to change the resolution first without changing the aspect ratio but I couldn't because with the default selected aspect ratio, there was only a single option for the resolution.

E.g., if you want to play in 1920 by 1080, change aspect ratio to 16:9 first (by clicking the arrows) and then click the arrows of the resolution option till you select the 1920 by 1080 resolution.

Entertaining game - really fun to play both in single player And multiplayer mode.

A lot of fun. good levels awesome graphics. love the gameplay.

A call back to gears with it's game play. This game provide awesome lore and action set pieces that feed the imagination.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ 7 / 10 }---

I played this on the 360 before. Since 360 online is down this is the only way to play while getting most of the features. it is a shame that there isn't many around to play on multiplayer except for exterminatus.

Solid third-person-shooter that makes you feel powerful, but still on the edge of danger at any moment. Feels old school in its simplicity by today's standards, but that strongly works in its favor.

It's incredible that they made a much better sequel to this game because this one is awful lol.

Get ready to press the same combos over and over, while hoping the targetting doesn't let you down.

It's like Gears of war if it was somehow much much worse.

There is a brief moment that the game is not awful. It is the jetpack part. They give you a decent weapon and a jump pack. It's good fun. They take that away from you so you can go back to plodding around.

It does that gears of war console nonsense where you slow to a crawl to listen to exposition.

Your armour is made of tissue paper. Melee combat is the only satisfying thing, but you have to keep doing executions to keep your health up. Executions don't stop damage so if you get the wrong animation, you might die before the health comes back. Great game design.

There's a bunch of dead space to plod through.

The game alternates between insultingly easy and parts where you have to play it like a cover based shooter because you'll die too quick, which are some of the least fun in any game I've played in the last twenty years.

If you want to use the hammer, which you should, it makes the melee combat much more fun, then you can't use half your arsenal. This will screw you over in some sections, where you are forced to participate in mostly ranged fights. So you can choose to gimp your melee gameplay or be stuck because for this section, you should really have a sniper rifle.

This game absolutely ruins the space marines. You're waiting behind cover for health regen so some infected guardsman doesn't finish you off. The characters say "space marine" about six thousand and eighty three times. There are multiple tiny changes in elevation and ramps that glitch out and stop you from moving-not areas you're not meant to be, but literally the path and the clip brushing is that bad.

The character movement is so slow.

Your squadmates are entirely useless, but they do occassionally teleport onto you and body block you. They do next to no damage-they are only really capable of killing the enemies who are wounded and stunned-the very ones you need to kill to regen health.

There is an entire mission just shooting turrets. I want to personally be the one to blackball whoever came up with that from any software job. Let's take this game about being a space marine, a giant, indomitable walking tank, and force you to wait in cover for your health to recharge before peeking the turrets one by one. No skill involved, just a waste of time.

It is incredible, in a franchise that spans this many games, that this manages to be it. The single worst 40K game, the single worst Warhammer game, in existence.

I give this game zero stars and may god have mercy on the morons who made it because I know I sure won't if I get to them. I will only finish this one so I can say that the complete tools who made this poorly balanced, unfun piece of trash, did not beat me.

For the lord's sake, the crosshair doesn't even line up properly. The controls are the least responsive in any game I have ever played. There is a boss that does the tired cliche of charging at you and you're meant to dodge. If you're playing on a controller, on this console port nonsense, you can't roll unless your sticks are pointed at just the right angle forward or it just doesn't do it. THEY BUILT AN ENTIRE BOSS AROUND THIS MECHANIC. And worse, it seems like someone realised it, because the charge attack doesn't do any more damage than your shield on normal difficulty, presumably because they realised it was dumb and bad and broken.

I hope whoever made this job now is doing something more suited to their skills. Like picking up cigarette butts from the gutter with one of those little grabbers for their local council. Or cleaning chewing gum off the undersides of furniture.

Very good game but it does not start. In order to get it to start you need to verify the integrity of the files and then you need to download a special file from a second hand website and put it in the game folder. Worst of all, you need to redo the entire process every single time you try to start up the game. This process is so infuriating that i do not believe i will ever come back to this game after finishing it.

Similar game play style to Gears of War inside the War Hammer 40K universe. Well worth it! :)

im trying to play it but very time i try it kicks me out and sends a bugsplat mesage
the game itslef is fine but i cant play it and i have tryied everything

to start off id like to say that this game has a great story and combat design. the struggle with this game however is the janky and overall spastic player movement. its difficult to dodge and traverse tight terrain. i recommend playing it for console instead of steam. it just runs better. i recommend you watch a video for the lore and play space marine 2. the sequel improves on all aspects. not a bad game, just dont recommend playing it in 2025. but if its on sale and you want it go ahead.

Awesome game, love the story, though it can be VERY annoying on some spots on normal difficulty, but I don't think it would be worth the $40 dollar price tag. Overall, a good game, would recommend.

for a game that was releases in 2011 it was pretty good and still holds up to this day!

the multiplayer is fun and the campaign is really good to play


10/10 GREAT GAME!

I get the feeling this game is more fun for people who actually are invested into the Warhammer franchise.

As someone who's just dipping their toes into it... this game was meh. Not bad, but nothing I would play again. The shooting feels clunky and the melee combat is similar. Not the worst third-person-shooter I have played, but it does feel very uninspired. Like someone went: "Hey, Gears of War is popular. Let's put that in the Warhammer world."

I get that Warhammer has a rather extensive catalog of different media, and this game hardly even comes close to representing it all, but I'm still kinda on the fence if I want to go deeper.

It did get a direct sequel not too long ago, but it just looks like more of the same clunk-a-dunk shooting and meleeing. I feel like a really good game could come out of this, but it needs to be a bit more arcadey - like focusing on the meleeing rather than the shooting. Turn it into a beat-em-up almost.

I can only recommend this game if you are already a fan of Warhammer and want more of that Space Marine goodness. But if you're like me and have no idea what Warhammer is really about, there's probably better pieces of media to start with.

If you care about the story first and foremost play this and then Space marine 2 obviously but if you want gameplay more than anything get 2 instead, not that this game is bad, this game is great especially for its time, but 2 is a bit better in terms of gameplay IMO at least.

Known game breaking bug after the Act 3 cut scene. This has been a known bug for years, as of 2025 the devs still have not fixed it. Cannot recommend until it gets fixed.

What can i tell?!
Have GTX-1070 and this amazing game runs like a Flash with all settings set to max.
Controlling the special moves is a little button mystery, but if you learn 2-3, then you'll have great fun in battles!
Fights are really breathtaking {but i am old school, i like it}
Maybe newer games are better, but first retailers {read scalpers} need to offer any RTX-5060 for $200, haha...
New 1920x1080 {for games} graphics card shouldn't cost more!

This Is a very fun game with a good story and gameplay, Im not into RTS or stategy games, so Im glad warhammer videogames arent always strategy games but I understand the appeal, since warhammer did start as a tabletop game, but yeah, the game Is pretty fun, the executions are brutal and fluid, shooting feels great, the wave mod Can be a bit frustrating at first but Its about getting better at the game and push the orcs to their knees to show the strength of Imperium and the god-emperor, like captain titus says, Some people say If the story Is necessary to know about first before playing space marine 2, Probably, If you dont wish to play through it, definitely read or watch videos about it, I did it before I will buy second game eventually, and I still found this game fun and enjoyable

After the masterpiece that is Space Marine 2 I had to go back and experience the adventure that made Captain Titus who he is. For a third person hack and slash shooter from 2011 the graphics, animations (executions in particular) and gameplay still hold up exceptionally. This just feels like one of those classic Xbox 360 games and that is by no means an insult. Very similar to Gears of War in tone and scope. Its unfortunate that the multiplayer is mostly dead, but still being able to find Exterminatus matches online is an unexpected prize. As such, slaying Orks in the name of the emperor is always timeless and I would easily recommend this game to any Warhammer or third-person shooter fans.

one of the best third person shooter games ive played, graphics are good for its time, gameplay is engaging and really fun, executions are awesome, sound design and story are all amazing, will be buying the second one

The game is a little dated but I enjoyed this game a lot and did not really know much about warhammer going in. You get to be a super soldier mowing down the enemies with chainsaw sword so thats all I should have to say

10 hour campaign. still holds up with the gun play except for getting stuck on small corners too much. its got the epic scale of SM2 though obviously without the fidelity.

I would say this game is worth the purchase but i cant get the thing to launch now. so until further notice please stay away from this game

fun fun fun fun fun, with a super fun surface level plot given gravitas by the actors involved, though Mark Strong keeps a constant sotto voce that really goes against the absolute hell going on around you
never really rises to the power fantasy one wants when playing a space marine game, but the combat puzzle is actually pretty fun, requiring some positioning and resource management. this pre-dates doom 2013 so the glory kills aren't invulnerable, which really makes things 'damned if you do, damned if you don't', though the Rage mechanic feels made just right where it's not a crutch but it's there when you need it.
looks just right for a 2011 game as well, runs well, pre-borderless windowed but oh well.

glad I finally beat this so I can play SM2

Played this for the first time in 2025 ahead of playing the sequel. The gameplay is fun although gets a bit tired towards the end of a short but intense campaign. The visuals hold up fairly well at times but you can tell they're from a couple of console generations ago at this point. The story is pretty good. Full of psychological self-reflecting (and doubting) space marines facing the taint of Chaos, heresy, and the warp. There is a lack of enemy types that becomes noticeable over time, although the game does change this up part way through for reasons I won't divulge here.

Probably the most disappointing thing is that all of the DLC for this game is multiplayer-based and there are virtually no players to join up with or fight against these days. Although this is not surprising for a game as old as it is, I felt the need to point this out to people hoping to play as their favourite chapter in PvP or PvE with all the customisation that comes with.

If you buy this game without a group of friends doing the same, you should do it knowing that the most you're likely to get out of it is a 6-7 hour long campaign where you play as an ultramarine captain. That being said, it is a punchy, fun campaign with a decent story and I would definitely recommend for any fans of the Warhammer 40k universe. Since the game goes on sale fairly often, at the age it is I would definitely advise you to wait for a sale. I don't think I'd consider it value for money at full price given the lack of multiplayer, its age, and the brevity of the campaign.

7/10

quite possibly the worst final boss fight in gaming
decent world building but guns suck doo doo mid to late game
if you enjoy beating dead horses and scribbling on the walls with crayons then its perfect for you
shouldnt be $16, i think maybe $8 is a bit more reasonable