While 2011 was a year of serious highs, there were more than a few lows, too. Even when you’re as plugged into the industry as we are, sometimes you just can’t avoid the stinkers.
Some of the entries on this poll are fairly obvious, but I’m going to try really hard to not insert my own bias into this list. True, I’ve learned fairly heavily on my own opinions for the previous polls, but when you start slagging popular titles, that’s when the mud gets flung. Without further ado, here we go!
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I voted other because as forgettable as Dragon Age 2 was, nothing can top the apathy I felt towards Portal 2 or Uncharted 3.
I’d like to think I’ve made my thoughts clear on both, so to those who really loves those two titles, I apologize. I am a gaming philistine.
L.A. Noire. I was excited to play it and the first few hours were so great. Then it continued and continued and never changed and the story got worse and the gameplay was revealed as shallow and stale. Better luck next time.
I honestly try not to get hyped for games after having it thrown in my face one too many times. The few games I did get excited for all met or exceeded my expectations.
I guess if I really had to choose I would say Brink, I really wanted that to be good because I loved the concept. I ended up waiting for the reviews thankfully and didn’t buy it until about a month ago in a Steam sale. I really liked the movement system but the rest was just one big “meh”
I haven’t even played any of the games on the list although I can’t really say I was surprised that they ended up disappointing people.
@Anthony L.A. Noire I can understand, the ending still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Anything with the Rockstar logo on it is going to advertise promises it can’t keep though.
@Mitch *shakes fist*
I was torn between Battlefield 3 (simply for its campaign, i love the multiplayer) and Portal 2. While both weren’t terrible they were just disappointing I felt.
I must be the only person that liked Dragon Age 2 then haha.
I voted Dragon Age 2 because dragon age origins was one of my favorite games at the time I enjoyed every aspect and was able to ignore the little flaws like the graphics (which i still maintain aren’t that bad) and the awkward gameplay (for consoles) because I was able to completely immerse myself in the story. Then on the opposite end of the spectrum is Dragon Age 2 which was an utter disappointment that didn’t improve on the gameplay ( again to clarify i was playing on console) and in my opinion regressed in terms of its story not to mention the lack of variety in dungeons all these reasons make it my most disappointing game of 2011.
I absolutely loved DA2, I just felt that it needed more development time. My disappointment is BF3 (console version), because the stupidly big maps for such a little amount of players. The first game in years I traded in in the same week I bought it.
Im confused as to why Call of Duty is on there. I guess Brink wins for me, I was really looking forward to it.
Im calling it now, this time next year Mass Effect 3 will be #1 on the list. WHAT!? Its not that I think it will be bad, I just think everyones expectations are impossibly high…. and even if it is bad, its not like anyone will admit it lol
Totally off topic but they plugged Eddy in one of the more recent Drunk Tank episodes over at Rooster Teeth. Made me very :DDDDDD
On topic, I (sadly) have to give my vote to Gears 3. I found both the campaign and the multiplayer (For reference, Gears 1 is one of the games that I hold every other multiplayer game up to, along with Counter Strike: Source, Left 4 Dead 1 and CoD 4) to be really underwhelming. Horde mode was fun, but I’ve seen much more well executed survival modes.
I think my biggest disappointment this year was myself. So many games that I bought and then didn’t play, or didn’t far into. Not because I didn’t enjoy them, but because other things came up.
All the games this year and still no Half-Life 3?
I guess of the ones I’ve played it would have to be L.A. Noire (haven’t finished yet… too many other games distracting me).
But I still have to go through Alice: Madness Returns, which felt weird for the first 10 minutes I played after installing. We’ll see.
Killzone 3. Not that tit was BAD, but the multiplayer went so Call of Duty in a bad way, rather than the nice niche of Killzone 2’s. It also had a lot of balance issues.
Brink and LA Noire were the two biggest disappointments for me this year.
Brink was underwhelming and not as well designed as I thought it’d be. I got bored during most battles; as in, I was nodding off while sprinting from one objective to the next, monotonously watching circles fill up until the time limit expired. I don’t know why Brink felt so unplayable since it’s a great game on paper. SMART is a cool system, but it doesn’t forgive the boring objectives. Maybe I’ve played enough multiplayer FPS’s for one lifetime.
LA Noie disappointed me because it was frustrating and very tedious. I thought I’d be okay with a slower-paced story game, but I just had no will to play the game. The interrogations were tiresome because “Truth, Doubt, and Lie” are not good enough dialogue options at all. What exactly will Cole say? What does he find truthful? What part of the story does he doubt? How vehement will his accusation of lying be? I need at least a snippet of his dialogue in order to make an effective decision. And since I’m a perfectionist, I’d restart missions to get the interrogations right, so it’d be a tedious ordeal of trial-and-error, and all the enjoyment of the dialogue would be destroyed. Driving around town was unnecessary (although if you skipped it, you missed the dialogue in the car with your partner, which I assume is where most of their interaction happened) and walking around the crime scene was probably the most irrelevant and pointless piece of gameplay I’ve ever played. Walk around, feel vibrations, turn the piece of evidence. Thrilling.
I guess Brink and LA Noire were just so underwhelming and poorly executed that any merits they had were drowned out for my experience.
Deus Ex and Skyrim more than made up for it though. :3
I can’t believe I forgot. Battlefield 3 is easily my biggest disappointment. I got it for Christmas and have completely forgotten about it. What in the fuck did they do to the PC version’s online!?!? I need to boot through Internet Explorer? I have to set Internet Explorer as my default browser, and can only change all my settings through that? What an absolute disgrace to a franchise that defined online shooters. Unbelievable.
Okay, once you find a game and are with friends it’s still fun, but this setup is absolutely deal breaking for me.
I honestly didn’t play very many 2011-released games, good or bad. But as far as games I *played* in 2011 that disappointed me, it has to be Bioshock 2. That game wasn’t doing itself any favors by coming off of the heels of its incredible predecessor, but man, that game was bad. Repetitive gameplay, frustrating controls, unchanged visuals, a forgettable and unimaginative storyline, and overall boring design. Worst part is, I can’t find anybody to dump my PS3 copy on.
I’m throwing in my vote for DA2. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first game, although I liked it enough and finished it. Then I got really excited about the second game. It seemed like it would be everything the first game should have been (in my eyes). Then I played it…and couldn’t finish. I know I shouldn’t review a game like that if I haven’t finished, but hackneyed story and writing combined with a lackluster battle system do not a compelling game make.
Also, I’m disappointed in myself, because no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get into strategy games. I’ve tried many of the Final Fantasy Tactics games, feeling like I should love them, and put them down after not too long. And this year was Total War 2’s turn, which again couldn’t interest me enough to keep playing. I’ll probably keep trying next time a game comes out with great reviews, but I don’t have high hopes.
Serious question to everyone that voted DNF:
Why?
Seriously, what did you expect when you went and bought Duke effin’ Nukem? Some Call of Duty-Bulletstorm-Super-Awesome-Shooter?
When I bought DNF, I expected nothing else. Just a nice, whacky 90’s shooter experience. And that’s what we got.
The game is good. It’s nothing new. MW3 isn’t anything new, either. Don’t change what’s not broken, huh? I still voted for MW3 since they keep making the campaign shorter. Yes, I actually got it for the campaign. Screw multiplayer.
Also, I wouldn’t call Dragon Age 2 a disappointment. It was different, but not bad. I really enjoyed how it was more centered around the action.
One of the biggest disappointments of 2011 definitely was Call of Juarez: The Cartel.
When I read “Call of Juarez” I’m thinking about a shooter in the wild west. What did we get? A shooter “today” involving drugs and everything. What the sh*t?