One of the main complaints about first person shooters is that the story is often tacked on and plays less a role than game play and graphics.  The Darkness is a game that gets the story right with great graphics but misses out on the game play. 

The Darkness is based on the comic of the same name that tells the story of a mob hit man that inherits "darkness" powers on his 21st birthday.  The game's story is told mostly though cut scenes while loading new areas.  This technique gives the game a more cinematic feel and avoids the dreaded loading screens.  These cut scenes are the main character doing a monologue telling you about his uncle or some other little story like how his uncle threw a guy in front of a train. 

Like another game I've recently played you get a couple minions to help you along in the game.  For the most part they are totally useless and often just run off to get themselves killed.  The darkness powers are all very interesting but end up making the game a bit too easy.  You get four powers: darkness Arm, darkness snakes, darkness gun and a black hole.  These powers are very useful for solving puzzles and killing everything in your path.  The arm is used to stab people and pickup heavy items.  The snakes allow you to creep around corners and kill people in stealth.  The guns are just guns and the black hole power allows you to create spawn a black hole that kills everything near by. 

I will not spoil the story or the ending but I will let you know that the boss battles in this game are very disappointing.  Often they are wrapped around cut scenes that build the story of the game but end up taking a lot out of the action.  I'd have to say this game is definitely a rental if you really are in search of a game to play.  It's available on the PS3 and 360 but you don't get an achievement for hanging with the main character's girlfriend in the PS3 version.