No vampire abilities, new dragon shouts or, let alone, crossbows will ever substitute for a well-told story. Unfortunately, Bethesda Softworks sucks at storytelling.

Generations is, without a doubt, the second blandest expansion in The Sims franchise since The House Party.

If TimeGate Studios had a desire (time, money, talent), here’s what it could have done to turn Section 8 into a proper game: expand its story, make a single-player campaign a la Tribes: Vengeance instead of a humdrum tutorial, improve visuals, introduce additional gameplay modes, add vehicles and destructible objects. Unfortunately, the final game is just an empty shell.

Rise to Fame is a typical "mobile game" - cute in its own way, but way too simple and shallow.

Dead Block's dullness and monotony devour the brain faster than any zombie.

The sooner you say good-bye to Mr. White, the less disappointed you'll be.

Cold language of numbers is the best way to describe Wanted. 9 levels, 5 enemy types, 4 hours to complete, 2 weapons, 0 multiplayer modes, 0 "wow" moments, 0 thoughts about playing this game again…

Mata Hari should have been made as a casual title. A handful of active screens, simple controls, and a few forgettable mini-games would have easily satisfied unpretentious gamers.

It’s hard to expect a breakthrough game from a studio that botched half of the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series.

Dead Space for iOS is a game with a simple design born on a Procrustean bed of budgetary and technical constraints, although its creators did their best to recreate the atmosphere of the big console brethren.

Operation Arrorhead is a big disappointment. Not only this expansion is boring, but it failed to realize its potential.

Games that inspired Binary Tweed's little arcade became cult hits thanks to their fresh ideas and contributions to the genre. Alas, Clover can’t boast any of that.

Interesting ideas, mediocre execution – it's an all-too common verdict for a game made by a B-list studio.

A few years ago, we had three very distinct shooter franchises: Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Ghost Recon. Now we have just one: Call of Duty from Activision, Call of Duty from EA, and Call of Duty from Ubisoft. I'm willing to accept this new direction of the series, but Future Soldier hasn't got a single memorable moment.

With two expansions under its belt, Sword of the Stars is finally catching up to its rivals. Galactic Civilizations 2: Twilight of the Arnor is still light years ahead, but on the other hand, Lost Empire: Immortals and Space Empires 5 are now just a stone's throw from here.

If American Nightware were an episode of an actual television series, I would have switched the channel long before the end of the first act.

Cold language of numbers is the best way to describe Wanted. 9 levels, 5 enemy types, 4 hours to complete, 2 weapons, 0 multiplayer modes, 0 "wow" moments, 0 thoughts about playing this game again…

Derivative, buggy, boring. N.O.V.A. 3 is nowhere near console quality.

Liberation feels like it was made only to honor the agreement between Sony and Ubisoft that required the latter to produce a Vita-exclusive Assassin's Creed game.

Cold language of numbers is the best way to describe Wanted. 9 levels, 5 enemy types, 4 hours to complete, 2 weapons, 0 multiplayer modes, 0 "wow" moments, 0 thoughts about playing this game again…

While Lair of Shadow Broker is a brilliant example of a properly made DLC, Arrival will be appreciated by only the most devout fans. If you want a completely tricked out save file for Mass Effect 3, then please pay $6.99.

Judging by the empty servers, no one wants to play a Battlefield 2 clone with very few gameplay features and outdated graphics.

As a racing game, Undercover is just mediocre. As a Need for Speed title, it's a failure of the century.

Routine – this word sums up everything about Windchaser. Veni, vidi, kill everything that moves. Rinse and repeat three thousand times.

In its current state, MotoHeroz cannot rise above the crowd of faceless short-lived arcades that fill App Store every day.

Long before the events of the original F.E.A.R., scientists of Armacham Corporation put Alma Wade into medically-induced coma and enclosed her in a sarcophagus to suppress her psionic abilities. While trying to create an army of clones with superhuman abilities, they twice artificially inseminated her body, but in the end paid the ultimate price for cruelty and greed. Replace Armacham with Warner Bros., Alma – with F.E.A.R., and this make-believe story will become real.

Crazy-looking landscapes, unusual color combinations and grotesque characters fill the odd world of Zenozoic. All this stuff could have made for a cool screen saver. Unfortunately, they crammed it into an action title. The result is a short, sluggish, boring game which loves to show off its novelty instead of entertaining the player.

Unmechanical is nice to look at, but overly simple and not that interesting.

On paper, Lockdown was full of promise: excellent source material, a couple of original gameplay ideas, creators of the recent hit Mortal Kombat as developers. In other words, a ready-made kit for an "iOS killer app". But what did we get in the end? A weak quasi-prequel with two lines of a story that tries to rip off Infinity Blade left and right. And it fails even at that.

A mute genderless creature named Chris stands before a huge mansion; he is lonely, stiff with cold and has no clue what to do. A note telling him to "feed the cat" does not count. The mansion is completely open to exploration. Walk around, look around. Be bored to death.

Mafia 2 doesn't even try to be interesting, even though an action game with a linear 10-hour campaign should be going for broke in order to entertain players. Vito Scaletta's misadventures are jam-packed with everyday trivialities, pre-historic clichés, and tiresome moralisms.

GSC’s third attempt at creating a post-apocalyptic world reinforced my belief that PR is the only thing this company does best.

A really boring TD game that wanted to be original.

In a desperate attempt to stand out in a crowd of silly arcade games, Naval Warfare lost its drive as well as accessibility.

Propaganda Games failed to create anything that even remotely resembles the brilliant TRON 2.0.

A poor FPS combined with an equally weak platformer. The developers must have decided that a minus times a minus equals a plus. Not this time.

Sameness is the worst enemy of Smash Cops. A miniscule set of missions will wear you out after just an hour and a half (yep, that's how short the game's career mode is).

A couple of hours into the game, monotonous running back and forth, punctuated with repetitive encounters, will inevitably put you to sleep.

Yet another European RPG is weighted down by cement shoes of its ambitions and the developer’s lack of proper experience.

Somehow or other Enlight managed to gather enough fresh ideas for an expansion pack, but they believe that they made a breakthrough. Dreamers!

Instead of breathing new life into the dying series, Double Helix created a piece of fan fiction. This Silent Hill is as authentic as chicory coffee or synthetic rubies.

The Act is a cute, but very short animated cartoon disguised as an experimental "game".

Poor selection of gameplay modes is not the worst offense of Gotham City Impostors; its numerous technical flaws are the real culprit.

A small step forward for Activision's value titles, a huge setback for Bond video games. At this point, I simply wish they'd ported GoldenEye to modern (Wii notwithstanding) consoles.

Forget about clever puzzles and “social stealth”. Instead of presenting various solutions to a problem, Velvet Assassin will beat you on the head with a stick and point to an “X” on the map.

If Rage were a human being, it would be a jack of all trades, but a master of none. Level design, racing sequences, "open" world, story, quests, characters, dialogue, visuals… id wanted to take a bite from each of these pies, but spread itself too thin, turning everything into mediocrity.

If you're still itching to waste a few hours on Vanquish, here's some advice: wait until the inevitable price reduction.

If you're still itching to waste a few hours on Vanquish, here's some advice: wait until the inevitable price reduction.

I wish EPOCH were as bright and exciting as its explosion effects and backgrounds!

Real Warfare 2 relies heavily on gameplay gimmicks, eschewing some crucial features that should have been a no-brainer to implement.

Future Wars is simply a mediocre game. If you want a pick-up-and-play wargame, dust off Massive Assault or buy a Nintendo DS and play the real Advance Wars.

If Saw were a scary game, we would have given it a free pass for clumsy action and silly endings. Alas, there is nothing to be afraid of in the dark. After a couple of rooms, you’ll be ready for anything.

Borderlands is as empty as eye sockets of bodies “adorning” bandit camps. Gearbox chose the silliest approach to game design: made a bunch of same-looking levels, where colored explosive barrels are the only interactive objects, placed quest-giving NPCs made out of cardboard, and churned out lots of “fetch/kill” missions. Borderlands has only one active ability per class and no character stats, while skills increase automatically as you use different weapons. Imagine Diablo 2 where Barbarian is limited to just “Bash” or “Leap.”

Fun and motivation are two things that Hoard lacks most.

Teotl Studios had the concept and the tools they needed to make The Ball a great game; they only lacked patience and experience.

Of Orcs and Men is based on a great concept that should have been tackled by a bolder, more talented team.

It’s easy to understand the initial excitement of PC users about this game – after all, Japanese RPGs visit the Windows kingdom once in a blue moon. Alas, dullness, even when properly ported, won’t become more beautiful or clever because of it, especially if it is produced by Square Enix who always has some kind of The Last Remnant per every masterpiece like The World Ends with You.

Crossfire is such a shallow, boring, predictable experience that asking money for it should be a crime.

Glitches can be fixed, but no patch can make Breach a deeper game. It takes a day or two to study it inside out, and come to a realization that you have wasted 15 dollars.

It's a pity that for such a good-looking game, Lili is absolutely lifeless.

Saints Row 2, like its protagonist, has been in a coma for the last three years. Just like many other failed GTA wannabes, it offers bland story, cardboard cutouts instead of interesting characters and tons of mini-games. Stillwater is not a city – it’s a theme park.

Yesterday is an underripe, silly, laughably short adventure. It's as if you're watching a cheap thriller on fast forward.

Zombie Driver is simply a dull, unpalatable game.

Fans of the Men of War series have already had their fill of World War II long before Condemned Heroes, and newcomers will get stuck on the very first mission. There's no life left in this concept.

Annoying bugs, shoddy graphics and horrible code optimization are not the worst crimes of this game. Instead of building upon its predecessor, Patrician 4 squandered all the hallmarks of the series and devolved into a Tortuga-style drab.

A more experienced studio could have made lemonade from these licensed lemons and turn the final chapter into a good action shooter. Unfortunately, the team at EA Bright Light had neither time nor experience.

A fantasy version of "Star Wars: Battlefront 2" with all the boredom intact. It’s like a poorly made pasty – too little jam, too much unleavened dough.

Try as they might, none can’t clear the bar that was set by Painkiller. Left to its own devices, without People Can Fly’s support, Mindware Studios created but a pale imitation. Some people can’t fly, indeed.

Hunted is one of those action games that fly into one ear and exit through the other without even touching your brain.

Legendary is a breakthrough, a revolution as compared to Spark Unlimited’s previous shooter - Turning Point. This one has a story, better graphics, more frequent checkpoints and almost no slowdowns. However, it still can’t hold a candle to more serious competition.

This game will bring you only pain and humiliation. It will drive you insane, filling your nightmares with many-colored bears.

Predictable from the get-go, wrapped in a blanket of tired clichés, without an ounce of adrenaline in its blood, Dark Sector has finally surfaced after eight years of oblivion, yet nobody seems to care.

There is a seed of wisdom hidden somewhere deep in Trauma, but it cannot break through the thick cement crust of a poorly executed concept.

For an official game, UEFA Euro 2012 is chock-full of unlicensed teams. It's easy to swallow false strips and fake player names in a team from, let's say, Lichtenstein, but when the tournament's host nations, Poland and Ukraine, get the same treatment, it's just bad.

This incarnation of AvP is a second-rate shooter in the most typical form, with overly repetitious game design, coding mistakes, threepenny visuals and dialogues scribbled on a rumpled napkin.

Short development cycle or utter lack of talent? The abrupt ending supports the first of these theories. But, no matter the case, $6.99 is way too much for this piece of "entertainment".

Six hours of your life, roughly one hour per each level, will drain away, leaving you only with disappointment.

Command & Conquer 4 developers tried to make a fast-paced game for a wide audience, but they failed miserably. For the fans of the “classic” C&C, this is an abomination. For the rest, it’s a worthless mediocrity with boring gameplay, lousy graphics, and an overly paranoid online DRM scheme.

The makers of Kane & Lynch 2 cite homemade videos as their main source of inspiration for the game. Well, their mimicry of YouTube is really perfect. This game is just as empty and pointless as pimple-faced teenagers droning on camera about the meaning of life, as millions of touchy-feely videos starring kittens and puppies, and endless fan-made clips sliced from popular movies. It is, indeed, the white noise of the Internet.

Too little, too thin, too derivative.

You'd have to be a very indiscriminate person to willingly step into this… game.

Despite the promising premise, an original character development system and spectacular finishing moves, The Cursed Crusade will scare away many people in just 20 minutes. The problem lies in poorly-placed checkpoints, stiff controls and overly annoying attempts at realism. Rapidly degrading weaponry is a definite buzz-kill.

Afterfall began its life as an ambitious CRPG, but turned into a mediocre shooter somewhere along the way.

Despite some interesting ideas and huge ambitions of its creators, APOX is just another low-budget RTS.

Not every shooter gives you a chance to abuse the laws of physics. Too bad that Saber Interactive could not flesh out its original concept, leaving us with a mediocre Gears of War clone.

The subtitle of this expansion is way more interesting than the actual game content.

Despite its obvious superiority over Handball Simulator, this game severely lacks budget and class.

Even talented designers couldn’t have saved Killing Floor. The game is so low-budget that it evokes pity instead of nostalgia. The visuals aren’t bad for an Unreal Engine 2 game, but they are a far cry from modern shooters. Threepenny lighting and jerky animation are the worst horrors you’ll see here.

In the end, you are forced to entertain yourself, because all levels look the same, differing only in gravitational force and the amount of enemies. What's worse, the game ignores the traditions of the arcade genre. Monsters randomly walk about levels instead of moving along pre-determined routes, and there are no bonuses or pick-ups except for boring med kits and ammo.

The developers tried to recreate the familiar sets from the movie, but the result is not worth even a fleeting glance. It’s better to listen than watch – High School Musical 3 offers about 30 songs. Unfortunately, there are too many slow tracks, which is not a good fit for a dancing game.

Mothership Zeta is not as shabby as Operation: Anchorage, but it still not worth neither money, nor time.

If it weren't for sci-fi elements, Darkest of Days would be indistinguishable from History Channel's Civil War shooters, although this game covers a wider period. Scenery changes, extras don different uniforms, but the lack of imagination is everywhere.

All the charisma of the protagonists is not enough to make up for the lack of substance. The gameplay tactics are primitive, and there is no feeling of fellowship that made Army of Two so fun to play.

Asphalt 7 is basically Asphalt 6, only with more pathetic attempts at social integration and obnoxious offers to share your progress with your friends.

Despite the picturesque sights of the fictional Venice, Venetica is bleak and mediocre in everything, from two-bit quests and meager weapon selection to tiresome combat. Don't expect proper character development, because there are only four stats, two of which are health and mana. Don't expect colorful characters, because the entire city went through a copier two or three times. Don't expect brain-teasing puzzles, because there is only one variety: "Push four buttons in a correct order".

The “alternative look” at the familiar events is hardly a bait for Prison Break aficionados. Other players will be turned off by horrible stealth, incoherent storytelling and outdated visuals.

All attempts to turn Duke Nukem Forever into a fancy scripted shooter look pathetic not only when compared to the Call of Duty series, but even to much cheaper games.

Captain Morgane is a bland story with one-dimensional characters, weak attempts at humor and mini-games that reek of desperation.