Hellgate: London Preview

Rock, Paper Shotgun kicked up a Hellgate: London preview. Additionally, they did a piece with their own unique angle, just how real is Hellgate's London?
There seems to be a pub every twenty or thirty metres, which while not actually exactly true, feels true, and at least shows an attempt to understand national psychology. In fact, the first pub I found, it brought a smile to my face. Until I turned around and saw there was an identical pub on the other side of the road. In my first few hours, I saw Town's End after Town's End, stretching out until I started to wonder whether this was a subtle attempt at world-building. Describing a world with slow, endemic corporate muscling out of locals, like modern coffee chains or whatever - the culture of an island being torn apart.