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.”

Napoleon is a great gift to fans of the genre. If only at least some of its innovative ideas would seep into Empire.

I don’t recommend buying Broken Steel, because it’s a matter of principle – let's not encourage trade in endings. You won’t miss anything important anyway – this DLC is only slightly better than its mediocre predecessors.

The most shocking surprise in Black Ops is a full version of the classic text adventure Zork: The Great Underground Empire, hidden deep in the CIA computer. The game that 30 years ago created an entire genre and stood at the very frontier of electronic entertainment, is now embedded in a derivative, formulaic, overwhelmingly linear shooter. I imagine that this irony is lost on Treyarch.

The only drawback of Darkest Hour is that it has only two starting points – 1914 and 1936. If you are completely new to the Hearts of Iron series, this is game you need.

Mirror’s Edge feels like an 8-hour ad for another, much more thought-out product. It has many things that blockbusters are made of: stylish visuals, elegant stunts, and great music. All it needs is to firmly land on its feet.

Wargame is definitely not a masterpiece, but for is Eugen Systems it is the first game with such a high level of quality.

Despite a few questionable ideas, Dungeon Defenders is an entertaining, fresh, vivid (and I mean literally vivid) game. It lacks the ingenious simplicity of Orcs Must Die, but if you prefer to play with friends, then this is what you want.

Puzzle Quest 2 offers more tactical variety in battles, but it is best consumed in small chunks, otherwise endless skirmishes with goblins and orcs will put you to sleep.

Despite its modest amount of improvements, Gods & Kings is an excellent reason to come back to Civilization 5.

The title Sleeping Dogs is a reference to "let sleeping dogs lie". Well, the developers should have heeded this ancient wisdom and let True Crime: Hong Kong die.

Outdated visuals, sloppy innovations, dead multiplayer… no, that’s not the way to continue a great series.

Akella, Russian distributor of the game, pulled a crazy marketing stunt. In addition to the regular PC release, it sells the game as two independent halves – Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena. My gut reaction was to scold Akella for greediness, but now I see that this is an unintentional benefit. You buy the remake of one of the best action games of 2004, and forget about its defective 6-hour appendage.

It's impossible to take Anomaly: Warzone Earth seriously. It's a distraction for a couple of evenings at best, and I wish it had more emphasis on interesting gameplay modes than superfluous radio chatter. Alas, as soon you move on to skirmish battles, the game quickly loses its sparkle.

PES 2013 continues the course that Konami charted three years ago. It's more confident, makes less mistakes, but still, it lost the final battle for soccer domination in this generation of gaming platforms.

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

Dead Island is yet another tombstone upon a grave of excessive ambitions. Our condolences to those who fell for that excellent cinematic trailer – it has nothing to do with the actual game.

Bend Studio brought not only Uncharted's familiar gameplay mechanics, but also its rich atmosphere to Vita's 5-inch screen.

Akella, Russian distributor of the game, pulled a crazy marketing stunt. In addition to the regular PC release, it sells the game as two independent halves – Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena. My gut reaction was to scold Akella for greediness, but now I see that this is an unintentional benefit. You buy the remake of one of the best action games of 2004, and forget about its defective 6-hour appendage.

From Dust feels not as a game, but as a humble experiment. It's almost like Ubisoft is testing the waters before diving in.

A nice reincarnation of The Lost Vikings. But, as opposed to the “lost” runner Erik, archer Baleog, and sturdy Olaf, the three heroes of Trine are imprisoned in one body.

Natural Selection 2 has quite a few things to be nitpicky about. Pared down strategy elements, scanty arsenal of weapons, lack of single-player missions and decent tutorials – yep, it's all there, but, in contrast to shooters that come off big assembly lines, the developers put love and effort into making of this game.

Lionhead carefully preserved everything that made Fable 2 so good. Though it's a pity that the "king simulator" concept is totally wasted here.

The new playable race and nifty multiplayer additions compensate for the disappointingly short, boring campaigns.

If you have never played Panzer General, this almost carbon copy of SSI's masterpiece may easily blow your mind.

This cute platformer is worth a look regardless of your taste in music.

Stacking is a great "sandbox" game for kids and adults alike. It tests your patience rather than wit, though, and after defeating The Baron, there is no reason to come back to it.

Multiplayer is the only thing that makes Revelations worth its price (and if you're still interested in the story, just go watch the ending on YouTube).