Mainlining
Skip · Strategy · 2017
The verdict
SKIP IT.
It scores 38, under the fair line, at $12.99.
- Length
- 5h 5.3h to 100%
- Value
- $2.60/hr
- Reviews
- 77% of 368 positive
Watch this gameOne alert at a price you pick.
Buy now or wait
Discounted in 4 of its last 8 seasonal sales. Last cut ended 11 days ago.
- Next sale
- Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
After MI7 has been hacked, your primary goal is to bring a cyber-criminal network to justice. Played entirely from your computer's desktop, Mainlining is a thrilling point and click hacking adventure that features a gripping narrative which will have you hooked from the very first case.
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 4 GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000 or better, 399 MB of storage. Windows only.
The value story
It has been discounted 73 times in the 10 years tracked here. The median cut across all of them is 80 percent, about 5 weeks apart. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended 11 days ago.
Value puts it in the top 32 percent of the games it competes with. It is pricier than 77 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 64 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Beholder: Conductor ($13.99, scores 71) beats it on value, while it beats Hacker Simulator ($24.99, scores 24).
What players say
Doesn't hold a candle to Hacknet and has a frustrating terminal experience for anyone who's used a real terminal or equivalent (Linux, Powershell and/or CMD, whatever) - can only remember one terminal commmand, not more - for a CLI (command line interface), editing your command using the left and right arrow keys (as archaic as that may be) does not seem to be possible. - sometimes the command could be correctly...
2 more reviews, 1 not recommended
the story really isn't engaging enough to justify the simple repetitive game mechanics, making it so so tedious (i.e. take website url to find the ip and then hack the ip -> download everything -> read through everything -> rinse and repeat ). most damningly, there were a couple of bugs that froze my entire game--forcing me to restart the case from the beginning (since there are no manual saves). at heart, i'm a...
Likes: - Characters and dialogue (Ashe Barne's emails were pretty funny to me) - The ending was well done I think (interesting time-based mechanics) - Art style & feel of the game (UI) Dislikes: - TEDIOUS typing (hated typing out IP addresses and file names...wish there was autocomplete!) - Early to mid game was pretty boring and repetitive (go to website, ping website, read the files, etc.) - Didn't like how you...
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: achievement curve (Steam global achievements).
Cite this score
Mainlining scores 38/100 on the BANG Score (a skip) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/454950/mainliningReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 29, price as of Oct 18. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.