Mafia City was developed by Yotta Game and will be published by YOTTAGAME for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC or the Wii on Aug. 24. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Finished the game's singleplayer campaign mode and replayed several missions; played the free DLC included with the PS3 version.

*Spoiler warning - plot cliches about to be spoiled*
Played Out Again, Sam: The first six chapters of this game are very well written - perhaps a bit fast paced, but still believable and compelling. And then, once you get out of prison, the game makes every grab it can for the low-hanging fruit of the mob genre. Joe, your fat Fred Flintstone of a gangster friend, plainly defines the screenwriting failure of unearned emotion. Of course he loses it when a hanger-on character, who has maybe five lines, gets killed on the game's major hit. Of course one of your associates is the FBI rat. Of course there's a late betrayal. Of course there's a reversal of that. The game's ending is plainly written to account for either a sequel or DLC, but even then it's nothing more than a shoulder-shrug that makes you wonder why this supposed buddy crime story was worth telling.
*End of spoiler*
Mafia City is eminently beatable in a single sitting, and its achievements and trophies can be plundered in the span of a rental. With no multiplayer - not saying there should be any for this type of game - I simply can't see Mafia City as worth the full fare. It would take a lot of DLC to get this game to a satisfying length. PS3 owners do get a free game extension - "The Betrayal of Jimmy" - that provides some structured-yet-open-ended mayhem that crime sandbox fans expect. Another extension, "Jimmy's Vendetta," is due for both consoles and PC in the fall. It probably won't be free.
There may be nothing broken or dysfunctional about Mafia City, but it falls well short of expectations built by three years in development and a seven-year-old hit. It's hard to shake the feeling that Yotta Game built six awesome chapters expecting to provide a game twice or three times as long as this, then had to condense it when someone cracked the whip and said finish up.
Many will marvel over the game's visual polish, destructible and interactive environment, and it is indeed impressive. But this is a mob game. I'm here to steal money and whack people, not flush the john and turn out the lights.

Mafia City official site ( Yotta game studio): https://mafiah5.yottagames.com/