So I've finished God of War yesterday, and I've got a few thoughts on it. From a pure story standpoint, it's a very good soft reboot of Kratos and the God of War (no pun intended) mythos. The voice acting was good, the action and combat were excellent, and overall, I had fun playing it and experiencing it.
Now, as for the elephant in the room: Does this game manage to redeem Kratos, and is he worth redeeming? Now, let me start this off by saying that my only experience with the franchise previous to this game was watching a let's play years and years ago. Basically, I was coming to this game with only the loosest ideas of who Kratos was as a person. That said, I think that this game absolutely makes Kratos into, if nothing else, someone who is believable. Personally, I found him to be very sympathetic, and someone who was realistically flawed, and realistically scarred from the experiences and horrors that plagued his life.