Many reviewers cited the game's unusual setting as the counterbalance to the mediocre gameplay, repetitive environments and poor camera control. Overall, the first game was moderately well received, with reviewers overlooking gameplay flaws because of a compelling story. Christian Nutt of GameSpy awarded if four stars out of five and commended Bandai for breaking new ground and Cyber Connect 2 for providing an engrossing RPG experience. Gary Steinman of "Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine" wrote, "t its core, ".hack" is not a good game", calling the battle systems "wildly unbalanced" and the graphics "spectacularly underwhelming", but said the "mind-bending" story allowed him to look past its obvious flaws and anticipate future games in the series. Greg Kasavin of GameSpot was less forgiving, deriding ".hack//Infection" as a sub-par version of "Kingdom Hearts".