Shattered Haven is a well-meaning game with crippling communication issues. At times, it underestimates you, offering blatant written solutions to its environmental puzzles. These moments leave your brain tightly wound and ready to solve problems if only it were given the chance. Other times, this top-down adventure expects you to perform specific actions while giving no direct indication that such actions are even possible. Yet there are times when the hints, level design, enemy placement, and provided equipment all work in conjunction to deliver a challenging and rewarding experience. These welcome scenarios reveal the kind of experience that Shattered Haven could have offered throughout.

The game eventually opens into an overworld containing several standard challenge maps and the trickier bonus levels. Once you've completed every standard map in the overworld, the story progresses and you move on to another overworld. Each map has a series of objectives to complete, most of which are optional. Typically, the goal is to kill the grays and escape, though you often earn more cash for not taking damage, for killing enemies in a certain order, or for not using certain equipment. Because money is a precious commodity--used to purchase health upgrades, weapons, and more--there's a strong incentive to replay the more fun levels with an altered style of play.

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