Reaper of Souls doesn’t veer too far from the road Diablo 3 has laid down. While the changes that came in patch 2.0.1 are great for the game, the expansion really feels like more of the same than any significant step forward. That said, if you liked Diablo 3, you’re going to like Reaper of Souls. And hey, isn’t that how an expansion is supposed to work?

What it does, however, is give you some nifty playgrounds in which to mess with Arkane's intriguing and sophisticated set of tools. This sort of thing is a skill player or a completionist's idea of a really good time. If you're like me, Dunwall City Trials will be a $5 investment that'll provide several hours of infuriating, but ultimately rewarding, entertainment.

But the power of The Walking Dead, of developing real, relatable characters and pushing players into tough decisions about how to treat and how to interact with them, is lost to a degree in 400 Days. Without more time spent with each of these characters, and without more context for the decisions players are asked to make, the experience becomes less emotional and more mechanical and cold.

Players looking for a solid set of approachable, easy-to-learn and tougher-to-master puzzles will find a lot on offer in MouseCraft, not to mention the unlimited potential of player-built levels to surpass its initial 80 offerings.

Despite its major victories and steps forward in storytelling, many of those same annoying video game conventions — the demand for action and high body counts, the lack of truly engaging and innovative play mechanics — continue to pull games like The Last of Us down toward the lowest common denominator.

As far as shooters are concerned, Wolfenstein: The New Order beautifully taps some of the best elements and mechanics the genre has seen over the last generation. It also delivers on an expansive what-if world vision that can be pretty intriguing, and opens doors with its characters — specifically a franchise protagonist who’s never been too deep — that add some nuance to the exploration of that world.

If horror is meant to plumb your fears and unnerve you, The Whistleblower at least manages that to do so a few times. For the rest, it’s a fun return to the stock release’s setting and mechanics for some solid jump scares and atmosphere, which lasts just long enough to remind of what made the original enthralling.

It’s a testament to Road Not Taken’s creepy little world that I’m so willing to continue the search, and to its gameplay and style that each foray remains rewarding.

That kind of consistent progression and steady experiential learning is the crux of the game and it’s here in spades. While not quite as good as the truly exceptional TD games I’ve found online in years past, but Defense Technica definitely worth its budget price.

Shadowrun Returns aims to bring back the classic RPG feeling — much like BioWare’s Dragon Age did when it was released — and succeeds wholeheartedly. It’s not too deep, has a short main campaign, and has design flaws from being built around a tablet, but it’s still the best RPG in ages.

I can’t stress enough how much fun Forced is when you’ve got even just one other player. It’s a smartly designed cooperative action game with lots of depth, great variety in its challenges, and a great combat system that encourages teamwork over all else. It’s a shame then that online play, at least at the time of this review, is too laggy for me to recommend, and playing solo is oftentimes more frustrating than fun.

Eldritch is almost two games for the price of one. Initially it could be said that it’s a comedy. The difficulty is un-obstructing and many of the enemy designs and animations are actually quite cute for nightmarish abominations. It welcomes you in and builds up your confidence, only to tear you back down again in New Game +, where Eldritch reveals its true colors as a first-person Spelunky with a horror slant.

Same strong characters and plotting that made Season 1 so powerful.

Like Columbia itself, BioShock Infinite straddles more than one world: sometimes transcendent, often tedious. It’s a game about characters choosing to lie to themselves and create the narrative they wish their lives followed, rather than succumb to reality. That’s the story of the game itself, too, as Infinite often acts as though it’s deeper, more groundbreaking, more willing to be relevant to the world of the player and strong enough to comment on that world, than it is.

If Valiant Hearts’ gameplay could match most of its storytelling, it’d probably be the best game of the year to this point. As it stands, it’s still a remarkably beautiful piece of interactive entertainment that does a fantastic job of showing players a piece of history in a way that’s easily accessible and yet emotionally engaging.

The Wolf Among Us Episode 2 generally feels quieter and more focused on Bigby’s detective side. Even when you are given violent options, they are less primal than Episode 1’s lengthy action scenes, but it also draws attention to Episode 2’s weakness.

It is complicated in one instance, and simple in the next. It seems generic at first, but then shows its uniqueness in setting and granular game mechanics. It’s a game by strategy enthusiasts, for strategy enthusiasts. Once you look past the awkward, pimply exterior, a game of surprising interest looks back.

With a great pay model — you give money to play chapters as they release to help fund further development, but each is eventually free — and no lack of dread-inducing darkness, The Last Door is worthy of the unflinching, lidless eye of horror and adventure fans. Be warned, though: you’ll be waiting a while for the answers Devitt seeks.

With its intuitive gameplay and in-game tutorials and hints, Legendary Heroes should be quick to pick up even for the 4X uninitiated.

Grimrock’s dungeon crawling gameplay is as solid as ever.

Ultimately, Beyond Earth is an exceedingly polished 4x experience, taking you and humanity through space exploration, frustrations and all.

This is a package that manages to tell a new story within the threads of The Last of Us, and the overall tapestry is richer for having it.

Gears of War: Judgment is the period at the end of the Gears of War sentence, and in creating it, Epic Games, People Can Fly, and Tom Bissell have created a masterpiece in video game punctuation. Personally, I look forward to their next sentence, when dust-choked, declassified chaos is the default, not the option, and Bissell’s huge talent is deployed in favor of something truly innovative.

Newcomers who persevere and keep on bashing away until they master the fundamentals will be rewarded greatly, but in all honesty, you might be best off tracking down at least the first NUNS game on PS3 and Xbox 360. For existing fans of the series, these are the ninjas you’re looking for. Network quirks aside, if you’ve got a PC capable of making NUNS3 sing, you won’t be disappointed.

While The Knife of Dunwall suffers in the story department, almost everything else about the pack is extremely well-polished, and the pathways through each mission are diverse and intricate, even if they’re not all as exciting as what’s in the main game.

If what you’re expecting is a much, much prettier version of Infamous 2, albeit with a frustrating mechanic of switching between your powers, then you’ll likely be happy with what you get in Second Son. If you’re thinking that a leap to a new console generation should mean more than just a leap in graphical fidelity, then I welcome you into my boat.

Overall, I would recommend Dragon’s Crown, but would warn people that the game still does suffer from that age-old problem that faces all 2D beat-em-ups: repetition.

It’s a competent shooter that scratches exactly the itch that Call of Duty players want scratched — a new setting, some new abilities, and lots of new maps within which to shoot each other. Just don’t expect anything you haven’t already seen before.