GruntLogic's 2011 Gaming Disappointments.

I was thoroughly disappointed by this game. I feel as though Bioware has abandoned everything that made the original game the gem that it was. The story is lackluster, the combat is boring and repetitive, and the characters feel flat and one-dimensional. The RPG elements have been striped down to the point where they're almost non-existent.

Going into playing this game, my standards were already quite low, and it failed to meet even those. I'm not sure how someone can make World War 3 boring, but by God, they did it. I cannot believe how relieved I was once the single-player campaign was over, and it should be noted that I beat it in one sitting, maybe 6 hours, tops. The only thing I'm looking forward to is playing the SpecOps missions with my comrade, Yordicus.

This really felt like an expansion pack to the absolutely incredible Assassin's Creed II. A lackluster and ultimately unnecessary expansion pack, at that.

After thoroughly enjoying the original, I felt somewhat let down by the sequel. Maybe my standards were too high. It's not a terrible game, just... not very good. It felt like a change in tone, like the change from the survival horror of Alien, to the action packed Aliens. Not the worst thing possible, just... disappointing.

This is a game that I had played only too briefly, and only the co-op campaign, at that. My main gripe is the use of humor. The original game has a wonderfully sharp sense of humor, but it obviously wasn't the focus of the game. In the sequel, it feels like they're just trying entirely too hard to be funny. It's like an uncomfortable silence when a comedian pauses for laughter and applause, and none is forthcoming. The rest of the game seemed quite wonderful, however.

It's no surprise that this game ends up being somewhat disappointing. However, my complaints with this game are purely technical ones. The load times were entirely too long, and there was an annoying tendency for textures to pop in after some delay. All that said, I still found myself enjoying this game thoroughly.

Overall, I think this was an amazing game. It earns a spot on my list because of it's incongruous boss fights. They stick out like an organic sore thumb on an otherwise magnificently beautiful prosthetic hand. In a game that emphasizes stealth gameplay so much, forcing the player into single combat against a boss character was very disappointing. I wasn't as let down as some gamers were, because I benefited from waiting to pick this game up for some time, and in that time extremely effective strategies were developed for putting down these bosses with ease.

If you need proof that cinematic trailers are absolutely meaningless, you need look no further than this game. The trailer was breathtakingly beautiful and tragic. The game is mindlessly boring and repetitive. Granted, I haven't played it, but I haven't heard anything good said about it. I decided to steer clear, and I'm certain I made the right decision.

I was hoping this game would be everything that Borderlands wasn't. All the reviews I've read lead me to believe that this is even worse than Borderlands, which is truly unfortunate. I was expecting a more fast-paced version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and hopefully not as punishingly difficult. It seems like a clone of Doom 3, only shit-brown and boring. Alas.

I'm not even sure this was supposed to be a Red Faction game. Red Faction: Guerrilla didn't get the greatest reviews, but I still enjoyed it. When you release a sequel that makes people wonder about the good old days of the previous (poorly reviewed) game, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

I have been strangely drawn to the Saint's Row games. They're like a more arcade-y version of Grand Theft Auto games. Just ridiculously fun. But I managed to find a strange amount of enjoyment in their explanations for their behavior. They had little cutscenes before every side mission, explaining why you were doing what you were doing, giving it some context. They were short, simple, and to the point. Moreover, they were almost universally funny. They have excised them completely, and when stripped of context, you're left with just bizarre unexplainable behavior.

I used to think Bethesda Softworks could do no wrong. I stand corrected. I've never been much into massive, online shooter games, and again, from the trailers that I had seen, they made it seem as though there were some kind of story, specifically like there was a single player campaign that might be worth playing through. Turns out that wasn't the case at all. They just presented an interesting scenario, and then ignored it completely for the rest of the game.

I strangely enjoyed the first twisted Alice in Wonderland game by American McGee, despite it's many flaws. It's unfortunate then that this game seems to have failed to make any improvements whatsoever. It seems stuck in time, circa 2000, and time has not been kind.

I don't think anyone plays the Fable games for the story, because the attempts at crafting a cohesive, compelling narrative always seem half-hearted compared to staggering amount of other crap you can do in the games that always manages to make the main story seem a lot less important. However, having heard how the main story plays out, I cannot help but laugh at the moronic attempt to meld a morality choice system into the story.

I love the Splinter Cell series of games, so it breaks my heart to hear about how poorly these games were treated in their re-release. When compared to the Ico & Shadow of the Colossus collection and even the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, I cannot help but feel like Splinter Cell got the short end of the stick.