The good things about The Matrix Online are so few, it's easiest to get them out of the way first. The game captures the look of the movies very well, from the gritty urban surroundings to the hyper-modern outfits. The music is nicely atmospheric, and fans of the trilogy will find references everywhere, from prominent AI characters to stylish fighting moves.

The rest of the game is unpleasant. To begin with, the interface is a mess, filled with minor inconveniences and the occasional mission-stalling bug. For example, most missions start with entering a building and stepping into an elevator. The interface requires you to double-click to open the elevator, double-click to pull up the floor buttons, click to choose a floor, then double-click again to open the elevator door from the inside. That's right, The Matrix Online manages to make elevators in the game work more poorly than they do in real life. This is just one example; the game is filled with a constant flow of poor interface choices.