Looking for something short and sweet

I have 3 games coming next week - Dragon Age 2, MLB 2k11 (unless I cancel it) and Yoostar 2.  Given that DA2 alone will consume me, I was just looking for something that I could finish in 8-12 hours over the weekend, and be ready on Tuesday to make my girfriend a Dragon Age Widow. 

I had a hard time choosing.  I thought about Bioshock 2 (still in it's shrink wrap), or maybe Maijan and the Forbidden Kingdom.  Maybe Devil May Cry 4, or Bayonetta.  I finally settled on Saw 2, but after the first part, I wasn't really into it, so I turned it off.  I then decided on Dead To Rights: Retribution.  Color me surprised, I was expecting a crap game with crap controls, but it's turned out to be fairly decent for what it is - a 3rd person action game.  It's not great or anything, but I got through the first 3 chapters without wanting to break it over my knee, so that's a plus.  The story so far is unimaginative and derivative.  You're a bad ass cop who's just had some sort of wild adventure, and are recounting your adventure to a friend in a bar.  All the action movie cop cliches are there - a sergent who yells at you for not playing by the book when getting the job done.  A gangland twist, and a death to contend with.  One interesting mechanic is that you can play as your dog.  This works out pretty good.  The dog can be stealthy, and it's fun to methodically work a room taking out bad guys.  The controls aren't bad, aren't great.  I find them to be at their worst when you're really trying to string together some melee badassery.  One move you can do is disarming your opponent, then shoot him with his gun.  I would have liked to have seen this exchange just a bit more fluid in the execution.  You can also perform takedowns, which are small scenes of you kicking ass.  These work fairly well, but aren't as tight as in 007 Blood Stone.  There, I could chain them together and just abuse my opposition, here, you can kind of do that, but it's a bit more clunky.

As it stands, I think I'll continue on with the game.  It's a fairly competent middle of the road game, probably a 6, 6.5 type affair.  The dog combat is about the only innovative thing it brings to the table.  I'm not sure if will have legs, but it just may be enough to keep me busy until Tuesday. 

I think I bought it for $10 on some black Friday sale.  At that price, it's a very good deal from what I've played so far.  There's some DLC for it as well, but not sure if I'll try that.  For what it's worth, I didn't play the first one on XBox.