In case the "Stealth Force Edition" subtitle didn't clue you in, this game is a bit different from your average Transformers game. To help pump up the "Stealth Force" gimmick/subline Hasbro had going at the time, instead of transforming from vehicle to robot in this game, you transform instead from vehicle mode to "stealth force mode"-- i.e., vehicle mode with a bunch of guns sticking out. The game, like most TF games, is still primarily a shooter, though it's more of a vehicle/driving shooter this time around.
    The basics of the gameplay go like this-- you mostly just drive around and evade enemies in your vehicle mode, gathering energon bits to renew your health as well as the occasional powerup, but "stealth force mode" is where most of the actual gameplay takes place. In this mode, you have a small meter on your bottom screen that slowly counts down the amount of time you have left in stealth force mode before you automatically convert back into vehicle mode-- yes, your sole mode with weapons is actually RATIONED in this game, as weird as that sounds for organisms who SHOULD have no issue transforming from one mode to another at their whim. In stealth force mode, your controls change a bit, which can be rather confusing-- instead of using the directional stick to drive around, it's more of a clumsy movement now, with the L and R buttons allowing more quick side-to-side action, as befits a shooter. You have a primary (fairly weak) weapon that automatically homes in on the enemy in your targeting reticle, and a secondary weapon that's powered up by ammo pickups scattered throughout the levels-- these are much stronger, but also more limited and generally aren't guaranteed to hit your target (all of your enemies are always in vehicle or stealth force mode too, by the way-- outside of the cutscenes, which are Flash-like in their animation, you don't see alien robots--or human characters-- in this game pretty much at all).
    This wouldn't be so bad if the gameplay were addictive, but it's not. It's repetitive and oftentimes frustrating. Most often your vehicle mode accelerates far too slowly unless you're playing a character whose specialty is being fast (like Bumblebee), and using that stick with the L/R buttons and firing buttons in stealth force mode is a bit uncomfortable for your hands on the 3DS. The enemies also NEVER STOP RESPAWNING. Ever. Out of the 18 Missions/Levels in the game, a few task you specifically with destroying so many enemies (which generally tend to be either light or heavy-- not much variation in enemies here), though you're never down to "just one"-- they just keep endlessly respawning until you kill as many as is required, and then the level suddenly ends. In all of the other Missions/Levels, it's best to simply ignore the lesser enemies-- i.e., what should be the main thrill of the game-- and concentrate on your objectives, since as soon as you kill one, another one respawns out of a garage or something nearby. Thus your gameplay style doesn't change much in any meaningful way, revolving mostly around either destroying targets or protecting targets, and that's it. (At least a radar map on the bottom screen tells you where your enemies and targets are, though.) Your health meter also depletes FAR too fast, to the point where you have to break off direct combat after a few seconds to go drive around the level and collect more Energon pickups, which gets annoying pretty quickly. Your stealth force meter, on the other hand, has the opposite problem-- only once during my entire playthrough did it actually deplete, and then it didn't take long to get it high again. It makes you wonder what the point of that gameplay mechanic even is. The difficulty is also very inconsistent-- some levels are an absolute breeze even if you're barely trying, while a couple-- particularly those where you have to protect certain structures, as well as the final boss fight with Megatron-- are an overly long, repetitive, teeth-grinding affair where I seemed to beat them more out of sheer luck after many tries as opposed to my skill-- I was clearly out-matched by how many (or how tough) the enemies were in those levels. There are a few powerups to shake up things slightly-- a powerup that gives you infinite health for a short period of time, one that gives you infinite powerful ammo for that same time period, and one that gives you infinite "stealth force mode power" for that same time period. These powerups-- as well as your Energon shards-- respawn, the latter more often than the former. Like the rest of the game though, they weren't balanced that well-- the infinite health powerup is so tough it almost feels like a cheat, and the infinite stealth force powerup is basically useless. (To be fair, however, these are issues more with how much health/stealth force power you have as opposed to problems with the powerups themselves.)

    As far as the actual storyline goes, there's a bit of a vague, somewhat incoherent nod at the Decepticons attempting to get Shockwave online, and the Autobots discovering and attempting to stop them. Really though, almost all of the missions except the last few are meaningless in terms of this overall storyline-- it boils down to protect these generators, blow down that door, destroy X Decepticons, fight Soundwave until he runs away, etc. There's actually a whole sub-plot in the middle of the game revolving around getting the Constructicon bodies back together to form Devastator again... except that no one actually FORMS Devastator. If it happened in the movie without explanation, I could see past this since it would provide some backstory, but what's the point if he never shows up? Meh. You also never actually get to fight Shockwave despite him being the focal point of the "story", either. (At least we get to hear a line from him in this game, which is more than we got from him in the movie... hey, with this game I gotta look deep for positives.)
    The game unfolds across 18 different missions, jumping between playing as an Autobot or a Decepticon. For the Autobots, you get to play as Mirage, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Ironhide; for the Decepticons, you get Lockdown, Soundwave, and Megatron. If you're expecting to play as each character a roughly proportionate amount of time, though, you're wrong. The people in charge of the storyline seemed to particularly like Ironhide, as you play as him in an inordinate number of missions, including the final showdown with Megatron. Meanwhile, you only play as Mirage in one level... the tutorial level. Er... what? I don't think I need to say how messed up THAT is. (On the Decepticon side, Lockdown also gets a disproportinately large amount of missions to himself, as well, though it's not as bad as on the Autobot side.) The missions themselves vary in length between less than a minute to up to ~10-15 minutes during the final Megatron boss fight, since he has a ridiculous amount of health and regenerates it rather quickly. Most are far closer to that "couple of minutes" mark, though-- depending upon your skill level, you'll likely only spend 3-4 hours on the game before beating the storyline entirely, and about half of that time is spend on a select couple of frustratingly hard levels (there aren't any checkpoints within the levels). That's pretty bad, but it'd be slightly more excusable if there were bonuses or extra objectives to play as or unlock. There aren't; heck, there aren't even different difficulty levels you can select before playing. Still, with such awful gameplay, this is probably a blessing in disguise.
    The voice actors do their job pretty well, though, particularly in the Flash-like cutscenes. (Get ready to hear your various commanders constantly tell you to pick up more Energon during gameplay, though.) The music is okay, but pretty forgettable. As for the graphics, they're better than those displayed on the DS, but not by much-- they're definitely below-average for the 3DS, with the shapes and environments being pretty simple and nothing too memorable. You also revisit the same five or six level environments over and over again, all of them in the small-to-smallish-medium size range. So it's not like there's a ton of territory to explore, either. You're definitely not getting enough content for your money, here.

    To put it bluntly, the "Stealth Force" edition of the Dark of the Moon game is trash pretty much from start to finish. There's a few VERY brief racing missions that are kinda entertaining, and the voice acting is good, but that's about it. It's overly short, the controls are clumsy, the gameplay is repetitive and swings from incredibly easy to mind-numbingly difficult at the drop of a hat, the story is almost nonexistent... definitely the worst Transformers video game I have played in a long, LONG time, and I'm generally more forgiving of these games than a lot of people are. DO NOT BUY, even on deep discount.
 

Graphics: 6/10
Music: 6/10
Gameplay: 3/20
Storyline: 1/10
Level Design: 2/10
Cutscenes: 5/10
Controls: 5/20
Replayability: 1/10

Overall Rating:29/100 Very Bad

(Screencaps taken from Gamespot.com)

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