Yes indeed, it's the semi-expansion pack to the original Crysis. I was sort of surprised and almost disgusted that this game doesn't have a topic (maybe I just overlooked the topic) so I decided to do what I rarely do and make a topic about it.

Background Information

Crysis Warhead is a standalone expansion to the original Crysis. Warhead takes place on the other side of the island and you play as Sergeant Michael "Psycho" Sykes. The game uses an optimized version of CryEngine 2 that provides a smoother gameplay experience and enhanced special effects. It introduces many improvements over the original with new weapons and vehicles as well as a retooled multiplayer with a new gameplay mode. The box includes two discs, one for the single player and one for the multiplayer (named Crysis Wars). This time around, they did not create silly limitations between DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 mode and so you can run at the highest setting in both modes without tweaks. That only applies to the single player though because Crysis Wars has the highest settings greyed out for me but they say they're going to come out with a patch to change that. I'm not sure if that'll mean they'll have day/night and tree-breaking physics or whatever in DirectX 9 multiplayer but the visuals will be upgraded at least.

DRM

Yes, I know this is a pretty heavy topic for both gamers and developers. Crysis Warhead uses SecuROM and limits the installations to five machines with each machine allowed to have an unlimited number of reinstallations. Crysis Wars does not have an activation limit. Personally, I don't see how I could use up all of those activations and the fact that you don't need the DVD in the drive to play makes up for the DRM. Plus the $30 price tag seems reasonable enough and they'll probably come out with a patch that removes the DRM sooner or later anyway. However, I do understand that some feel strongly against this and make no exceptions so I guess it depends on what you believe and what you think of the situation.

The Game

I'll start off talking about the single player. The single player is definitely shorter than the original game. I've heard estimations of five hours but I didn't keep track of it myself. As far as optimizations go, this game felt much smoother than the original however I have seen people saying that the game runs the same or even worse than the original so it seems mixed. Mostly though, the problem can be traced to DirectX 10 mode so try adding "-dx9" to the end of your shortcut and see how that runs. Many report that doing that adds more frames per second. The game does look better, especially the lighting effects. Enough about the performance, the single player itself is much more action packed than the original. They also say that the AI has been improved but I haven't really noticed (in fact the aliens sometimes do very stupid things). Missions that have a focus on vehicles allow you to exit the vehicle at any time so you're not forced to use it, which is a nice touch. Cutscenes are more detailed and are many times shown in a third person perspective (unlike the first game where all cutscene were in first person) which is an improvement. The battles are more varied and you'll see groups of enemies together that you wouldn't have seen in the original. I have encountered a few crashes, mostly in single player, I hope this gets fixed with the first patch.

As for the multiplayer, it's quite fun. Crysis Wars has three modes, Instant Action (deathmatch), Team Instant Action (new to Warhead), and Power Struggle. I've been playing in DirectX 9 mode so I haven't been able to experience the advanced physics in multiplayer but the suit modes and excellent level structure provide enough substance to have loads of fun with. Mostly I've been playing with Team Instant Action as I've had the most fun with it. Power Struggle is more complicated and tactical. Basically you have two teams and everyone starts off with a pistol. You gain points by killing enemies and capturing buildings. With those points, you can buy more powerful weapons and other miscellaneous items. This mode is all about control as the name suggests. You need to capture buildings which will improve your technology so that you can eventually have the technology to get the nuke. At that point, you'll be able to nuke your opponent's base and win the match. Matches take a long time and some servers even have rules against using the nuke before a certain amount of time has passed. I didn't have as much fun with this mode but it's worth a try.

Conclusion

Crysis Warhead brings with it a lot of improvements but it seems to have some kinks which need to be patched. The DRM might be seen as a problem but it works fine for me. For $30 I'd say it's worth it.

I hated the first Crysis since it's so fucking hard for me. Yeah visuals and all are great but I can't ever take down enemies stealthily or all out in this or far cry.

The original Crysis was such a good idea that was just executed poorly.  I'm just not seeing anything interesting coming out of a short standalone expansion pack.

But I'll probably pirate it because that's how I roll.

I hated the first Crysis since it's so fucking hard for me. Yeah visuals and all are great but I can't ever take down enemies stealthily or all out in this or far cry.

Have you tried playing on the easier difficulties?

crysis is so easy. Seriously a game that can make you invisible to hide from enemies...
I love having fun mucking around in Crysis so I hope my torrent for Warhead kicks up soon!

rami bought this two days ago, beat it earlier today. It's pretty short (took me like 6 hours) but I really liked it. Overall it works better than Crysis although I had some annoying slowdowns. It's more action-paced and the driving levels were easily better than in the original. Fighting aliens was a lot more fun too because they had mixed things up by making you fight aliens and Koreans at the same time, that and the alien AI seemed better as well.

I think it's a great game and Crytek have managed to improve things a bit but it still has same issues original Crysis had. My main issue with Crysis is that it has so much potential with all the cool things it has but it doesn't really show. You aren't really forced to destroy anything, it doesn't matter that you can shoot trees and make them fall and so on. The physics are great but they don't really matter. They really need to work on level design and make the levels more compact and interesting. I like the sandbox approach and how you can approach missions in different ways but comparing Crysis or Crysis Warhead to say, Half-Life 2, it just lacks that something. Well, even so, Crysis and Crysis Warhead are my favorite FPSes besides HL2 and Bioshock.

Also, I don't see how Crysis is too difficult unless you are playing on Delta. On Delta, enemies hit you really easily even if they are far as hell so you are forced to cloak around a lot but on easier difficulties you don't need to mind your surroundings that much. I'd say Crysis is too easy if anything.

Yeah this.

This game is a lot better than the original Crysis. They did a decent job on the actual story, with a little more character development. They really worked on cutscenes as well, because they're 50x better in this game than in the original. As far as performance, it's a big difference for me. I averaged 24FPS on the original Crysis, with tweaked settings on an 8800GT. Now the game averages about 30FPS even in the ice levels.

But yeah, while the engine is really really good, it's not being used to its full potential. The objectives are still the same(hit checkpoint, destroy something, etc), and there really isn't much else to it. They vary somewhat, but it still lacks something. Overall though, it's a really good game.

Have you tried playing on the easier difficulties?

Easiest possible.

You know even if I go invisible I can't do anything with it except get 5% closer to the enemy camp and than get spotted.

JESUS CHRIST PSYBURN STOP DOING THIS TO ME.

You're one of the only asians here and you CAN'T DRIVE WELL and you're BAD AT FPS GAMES

please don't mark. he literally spent hours saturday whining about how much being asian sucks.

QUick, give him some math problems to boost his self esteem.

he sucks at math too i asked before

Apparently there are already tweaks for this game. Mostly they are carried over from the original Crysis but they seem to work. Tweaks can be applied by creating an autoexec.cfg file in the Crysis Warhead folder. Then you just input commands from there. From what I've seen, this really helps:

con_restricted=0
sys_budget_videomem = 512

Change the "512" to whatever amount of memory your graphics card has. Supposedly Crytek made the game take up 256MB of vram by default. For additional tweaks, there is a program that made tweaks for Crysis that will also work for Crysis Warhead.
CCC 2.21: http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=23117
Just select your preferences and install. All it'll do is make an autoexec.cfg or system.cfg file. Don't select anything in the "Extras" section as those may not work with Warhead (Time of Day definitely won't work). Then just put the autoexec.cfg in your Crysis Warhead folder. However, this tweak doesn't include the "sys_budget_videomem" line so add that in the generated autoexec.cfg somewhere.

I might get this sometime, granted I finish Crysis beforehand (I do like Crysis so far though)

How big is this?

DRM

Yes, I know this is a pretty heavy topic for both gamers and developers. Crysis Warhead uses SecuROM and limits the installations to five machines with each machine allowed to have an unlimited number of reinstallations. Crysis Wars does not have an activation limit. Personally, I don't see how I could use up all of those activations and the fact that you don't need the DVD in the drive to play makes up for the DRM. Plus the $30 price tag seems reasonable enough and they'll probably come out with a patch that removes the DRM sooner or later anyway. However, I do understand that some feel strongly against this and make no exceptions so I guess it depends on what you believe and what you think of the situation.

What happens when I want to play this years down the line, and have gone through several computers (I'm bad with computers). I mean, from the looks of it, this probably won't be memorable outside of the multitude of FPS's nowadays, but come on...

You ask them to give you more activations / they remove it after 1 year anyways.

But I don't buy DRM games, so. Downloading this one for sure.

That's funny, I found it too easy to be stealthy. I would cloak, line up a headshot, quickly go to strength, take the shot, and before he could hit the ground, I was back in cloak. The CPU was RETARDED when you were cloaked, as long as you didn't walk right next to them.