fyi : to save you the trouble of reading every article, i’ve picked out a few lines from each. you can check out the full previews by following the links in the list, or clicking on the titles before every paragraph.

[ 3D Action Planet ]
Animations on models are also very well done, especially for Alice. Our heroine will swing her legs back and forth when climbing ropes, fold her arms behind her lower back when talking to others (while gripping a knife, I might add), and have her dress billow out like an umbrella when riding air currents.

[ Action Trip ]
Because it’s an action platformer, the game is highly linear and doesn’t really offer any kind of freedom in terms of what you have to do and where you have to go. Not to mention the fact that the Cheshire Cat is acting as your guide giving helpful hints and pointers along the way if you encounter even the easiest of "puzzles." All right, this keeps the pace going, but it wouldn’t hurt if we had to use our brain a bit more, and kinda had the freedom to choose our path, and even make different ethical choices.

[ CNET Gamecenter ]
But this isn’t the first "action/adventure" to skimp on the adventure elements – and the truth is that a lot of players will be so overwhelmed by the surrealistic surroundings, phenomenal character animations, and immersive level design that they won’t notice until their fingers get tired from hitting the Jump key and clicking the mouse button to fire.

[ Daily Radar ]
Unfortunately, we weren’t pulled along by the gameplay, and that’s the title’s biggest flaw. Travelling through Wonderland is a struggle for Alice, she’ll fight legions of card guards and other enemies, but we never really felt challenged. Combat is very straightforward, using the various Wonderland weapons Alice comes across and defeating foe after foe, until reaching boss characters – and defeating those as well.

[ Entertainment Depot ]
What struck me from the moment the demo loaded was that the advertisements were dead-on, this was going to be a unique and very strange adventure. When presented with a great glimpse of this Alice, you view the White Rabbit as he jumps off into a great void and are told by the Cheshire Cat to follow him. This enigmatic cat will appear numerous times to present Alice with hints as to what to do and can be recalled by pressing ‘c’ while you frantically follow the strange rabbit.

[ Future Looks ]
So when its all said and done Alice rates high on my Warp-o-meter and even higher on my games rating. Bizarre storyline, nightmarish characters, and killer music, what more could you for ask from a game that wishes to shatter the shiny, plastic, focused grouped version of Alice in Wonderland by Disney? Daring and refreshing, enough said.

[ Game Basement ]
I was very satisfied with the plot. It kept me going through the whole game, knowing that Alice ultimately would have to confront herself in one manner or another. I kept hoping for a climactic end, which I got. Plot-wise everything seemed to fall into place very well. Perhaps that is why Wes Craven and John August are turning this game into a feature length film.

[ Game Over ]
The gameplay is addictive but frustrating. I REALLY like this game but I REALLY don’t like jumping puzzles and I REALLY don’t like dying every 5 minutes because I fall into space or I fall into lava, or I fall into acid, etc. There is a lot of jumping puzzles in this game. They’ve done a good job with the little feet icon to help you figure out how to jump, but I still don’t think that jumping puzzles = good gameplay. It’s the single biggest problem I have with this game, and it IS quite a big problem.

[ Game Pro ]
While the graphics are awesome, the levels are frequently brilliant, and the whacked-out character design is perfectly suited to Alice’s Adventures in Hell, this is an idea that deserves more than an overly simple 3rd-person platform shooter. This Alice is far more suited to a role in a grand graphic adventure, and the game stands a shining example of how high-concept gaming art coupled with low-concept gameplay makes for an interesting paradox – you’ll want to see it all, but you won’t really want to play it all.

[ Game Spot ]
The visuals are excellent, but whatever disturbing ambience Alice manages to create is due largely to the soundtrack by former Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna. Among other things, it’s a mixture of a toy piano, bells, and a girl’s choir. It effectively punctuates – and often is all that keeps you reminded of – the atmosphere of dread the game strives for. The voice acting is also generally good, particularly that of the emaciated Cheshire Cat, who delivers his lines in the manner of Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.

[ Game Spot UK ]
Alice’s range of movement is a complete but pretty standard selection for this kind of game. She walks, she runs, she swims and she jumps, but Alice is straightforward to control, the camera switches view intelligently and it is always clear if a jump can be sensibly attempted. I discovered none of those annoying situations where a leap seems tantalisingly possible but turns out not to be after hours of fruitless experimentation.

[ Game Spy ]
The game’s only notable shortcomings seem so secondary and subtle, that their discovery is somewhat delayed and their importance obscured by the freshness and ingenuity of the overall experience. Some might criticize Alice for its failure to deliver revolutionary gameplay alongside its revolutionary presentation. Others might dwell on the clumsy combat abilities of a barely-there enemy A.I.

[ Game Zone ]
Voice casting was done very well for this game. Alice has a pleasant and soothing accent as a lovely contrast to her deadly purpose and hard-edged attitude. The Cheshire Cat also has quite a unique, somewhat sinister voice to match that wickedly toothy grin. The original soundtrack was suitably matched to the somber and dark atmosphere of the game although not drawing too much (perhaps too little?) attention to itself.

[ Gamers Depot ]
There are other helpful characters that you’ll encounter as well, like the Turtle and the Caterpillar, but they don’t follow you through the game. As you venture forth, you encounter many enemies who are trying their best to rid of you and your persistence. However, one thing that struck me was how the AI (Artificial Intelligence) never got any harder as the game progressed. There were many times when I could simply just outrun the bad guys and it’d be over with.

[ Gamer’s Pulse ]
Graphically, the Quake 3 engine does a great job of providing some amazing water and transparency effects. The character animations are smooth and stutter free. As it’s the Q3 engine it does suffer from the occasional clip problem but it’s the demo and I never trust the graphics entirely in demos.

[ Gamer’s Pulse ]
Mixed with this incredible attention to atmosphere and detail are some fairly nice puzzles, some of which are quite inventive, and a nice dose of action. The game manages to balance quite well between fighting and exploring, allowing players to take in the surreal surroundings and puzzles.

[ Gaming Age ]
In closing, if you love grassroots "platform jumping and switch pulling" games, you will certainly love this. If you love great sound and amazing visuals, you will like also like Alice. Better yet, if you like games, do American "Alice" McGee a favor and buy his masterpiece right now!

[ Gaming Orgy ]
Oh god. Oh GOD. Remember the first time you got chills on the back of your neck when you first played Half Life on your friend’s EAX four point surround? Expect it again for the first time. Weapon sound effects are perfect. The knife swishes and slices like a real knife. The Jabberwocky Eye Staff charges up like a powerful generator and disperses its energy ray

[ Games Domain ]
I rarely pay attention to in-game music but in Alice’s case, the ambient soundtrack possesses a fantastic chilling quality that perfectly complements the dark and sinister atmosphere of the game. While there are no real scare moments, the chorus of young voices and creepy instrumentals in the score (all originally composed by former Nine Inch Nails member, Chris Vrenna) keeps tension levels high.

[ Games First ]
Unfortunately, it seems that the main reason for playing the game is to look at the graphics and admire the clever level design, because Alice’s gameplay and story itself are pretty weak. The bottom line is that Alice is a very minimalist action game cum shooter—gameplay-wise, it reminds me of nothing so much as Crusaders of Might and Magic.

[ Hard Gamers ]
Ce concept brillant facilite grandement le gameplay. De plus, dans Alice lorsque vous laisserez la cible quelques instant sur un ennemis, cette petite cible se bloquera sur ce même ennemis en l’encerclant, ce qui facilitera grandment votre attaque. Cette même cible facilitera aussi vos sauts; lorsque vous aurez un saut dangereux à effectuer il vous suffira d’aller placer cette cible à l’endroit ou vous désiré attérir jusqu’à ce que des emprintes de pas apparaissent, à ce moment vous n’aurez qu’à appuyer sur la touche de saut et alice attérira sur ce point précis.

[ IGNPC ]
Alice raises the bar for level design and graphics so high that smaller development houses are just going to sigh resolutely to themselves and whisper "well at least we’ve got bigger aliens in our game." In a year full of almost-but-not-quite trendsetters (we’re not including you, Sacrifice), Alice manages to deliver a near-constant stream of wows, something I can’t remember experiencing in a long, long time.

[ Intel Gamer ]
There are puzzles along the way that must be solved, but nothing really hard or seeming like they shouldn’t be there. The only problem I had with the demo was that sometimes Alice would not jump when I pressed the jump key. This caused me quite a few deaths and some very choice and creative language for the little girl.

[ Old Married Guys ]
The special effects and enhancements built into this game made me pause the game several times just to write down the words “WOW” for this review. The swimming level, and the view looking up from underwater, must be seen to be believed. I still don’t think this is the Quake 3 engine. Kudos to Rogue for the job they did with it. Oh ya, then there’s the Ogre Duchess. This mini-boss has the coolest special effects I’ve ever seen on an enemy, and I’ve played a lot of games in my life. Her running is a mix between the Tasmanian Devils’ dust storm and the motion blur of the Flash.

[ Online Game Review ]
American McGee’s Alice is not supported by multiplayer as of now, nor should it ever be. This is a great stand-alone game and extremely enjoyable as single player. A multiplayer feature would confuse the hell out of all of us, because it wouldn’t be a FPS…it wouldn’t be an RPG…it would be a solving riddles/puzzles multiplayer? I don’t think so. It’s great how it is, and it will stay as single player.

[ Quarter to Three ]
Alice features a clever little jump targeting mode that shows you a pair of feet where the character would land if she jumped at a given moment. This looks like it will be a great help early on, but then you hit the really tricky jumping puzzles. Jumping on ice. Jumping on rocks in a fast river. Jumping over lava. Jumping when you’re being attacked by things you can’t see. Jumping on moving platforms. Getting knocked off moving platforms by dangling obstacles. This is how you will spend the bulk of your time in American McGee’s Alice.

[ Well Rounded Entertainment ]
American McGee has done something that few developers are willing to risk these days. He has stayed true to his vision. Dispelling people of their notion of a blond, pretty, cartoon Alice was a bold undertaking – and one that was far from a certain success. Growing Internet buzz and critical praise indicates his gothic Alice is going to hit big, though. And nothing could make us happier. The game is addictive, incredibly beautiful, unique, practically perfect and guaranteed to shake the industry up a little.

[ Xtreme Network ]
The game plays in a 3rd person perspective viewpoint which is a change from the normal first person viewpoint we’ve become accustomed to. Controls are fairly easy to get used to though one thing that did strike me as rather odd was the lack of a crouch button. Your mouse controls left and right directions while moving the mouse up and down allows you to look around. You’ve also got a "Use" key, which I only found useful when I needed to climb though in the full game I would imagine the Use key comes into play a lot more.