Sleeping Dogs provides players with an engrossing narrative set to the atmospheric and richly-detailed backdrop of Hong Kong. An extensive array of additional missions and activities ensure there are always opportunities for further adventure and action to discover while roaming the streets. Along with an impressive presentation for both the visuals and music, Sleeping Dogs is without doubt the sleeper hit of this year for open world action games.

Square Enix and United Front Games pulled Sleeping Dogs from the brink of death, and what surprised me is just how good it turned out to be.

Unlike the previous ‘True Crime’ games, where there was a strict depiction of the city maps, Sleeping Dogs does not portray Hong Kong, inch by inch. United Front Games has implemented GTA’s novelties in way that winks slyly at Rockstar. In essence, what the GTA series has accomplished, Sleeping Dogs has carried out better and more elegantly. [October 2012]

The finished game--which only made it to release thanks to a last-minute rescue from Square Enix--won't be remembered as one of the world's great open-world crime games. But it will be thought of as a good, solid one that did enough right to be mostly fun from start to finish. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

City action in an Asian style casts a fresh wind to the sandbox game genre, with attractive worlds full of details, great battle mechanics and cool free-run sections. [Sept 2012]

This game is a very pleasant surprise that's throwing down the gauntlet to GTA V with its Cantonese oral insult. The game's story along with plenty of gaming mechanics' innovation make Sleeping Dogs a truly remarkable and never-ending joyride with no intention to imitate the original at all costs. I'm so sorry Niko, you've been great, but at the end of the day Wei Shen takes it all.

The title Sleeping Dogs is a reference to "let sleeping dogs lie". Well, the developers should have heeded this ancient wisdom and let True Crime: Hong Kong die.