It's dull, with rare moments of huge reward, and the only game it's competing with in the graphics department came out about 10 years ago, but it is not poorly designed.

Of course, if eye candy, implied promiscuity, and becoming a rock star do happen to be your cup of tea, you'll certainly find Miami Nights much more engaging than the typical social sim.

The Cartel has some interesting ideas behind it. However, too many of them are dependent on co-op, and even with them, long stretches of the game feel like boring, soulless slogs. More damagingly, the charm and sense of fun from the earlier games is largely gone, replaced with what appears to be a desire to ape the low-fi look and grittiness of Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days.

You've got one track, a small assortment of vehicles, stupid opponents, an antique setting, and little variety. Unless you're a historian of racing, better leave this one in the garage.

We know that plenty of people will look past the monotonous gameplay, poor voice acting, unimaginative level design, lack of online play, etc., but our advice is to hold out for the next movie.

You know the drill: games based on movies tend to bite.

The graphics are fair, but like the fighting, they grow redundant too quickly, and the story couldn't get the game noticed even if it were drunk, topless, and the only woman in a bar full of sailors.

A lethal combination of clunky menus, lack of guidance, and general tedium combine to make Front Office Manager a dud.

The cases aren't terribly creative and the dialogue is often flat and poorly translated from the original Japanese. You'll also likely love or hate the atmosphere - Jake is the stereotypical gritty, film noir-type private eye, with all the trenchcoats, dames, and languidly rising smoke that entails. Cliché, or classic? You decide.

It's impossible to recommend Venetica to anyone when there are so many other better action-RPGs out there. You might be tempted to pick it up because it's only forty dollars, but don't do it... unless you've already played every other RPG on the market.

Devotees of this universe's mix of fantasy staples and steampunk gadgetry might find themselves unable to resist Mage Knight: Apocalypse's dubious lure, and may even enjoy the game's character-building freedom if an effective patch comes along, but they aren't likely to stay enamored for long when this holiday season's bigger and better RPG offerings finally appear.

Stronghold 3 is a bizarre third outlier, clinging to an aging formula but making changes that actually feel like a step back. The real crime here isn't that Stronghold 3 is a bad game, it's the disservice done to a series that has provided so much joy in the past, ruining our nostalgia. Somewhere, a child in a tree fort is weeping.

From the very start of the game, it becomes quickly apparent that Rush'N Attack has nowhere to go but down. The visuals are ugly and look dated, it borrows the majority of its concepts from other better games and it simply is no fun to play.

There's arguably some creativity in the souls-as-power-ups bit, but having to switch into spirit mode, grab the proper color orb (assuming the tapping works; it's erratic), and sling it at DJ's feet in order to heal is a cumbersome chore.

In the end, despite the inkling that the designers had a couple of good ideas rattling around in there somewhere, Winter Voices simply fails to be much fun. Perhaps later iterations in the series will polish the AI, make combat more exciting, and fix the writing… but we doubt it.

An aggressively mediocre FPS. Any decent ideas suffer from bad design decisions, and so the shallow multiplayer is a hollow experience that even the most hardcore Frank Castle follower will want to skip.

Kids probably won't mind much, and they're definitely the target audience here. Pirates' Carnival isn't spectacular in any one sense, but the solid mini-games and well-used license are enough to put it near the top of the distinctly uncompetitive party game genre.

Sonic Free Riders can offer some real fun when everything comes together and works properly but those instances are rare and the rest of the time the game can be very frustrating. The lack of content also makes it quite a steep purchase.

Spectral Souls is a true sob story. There's a perfectly serviceable game here, buried underneath one crucial problem.

Even the multiplayer comes up short by supporting just four players, though we assume the game would likely collapse upon itself if tasked with anything more. It's a shame to see such a sloppy effort from a stellar independent studio.

A textbook example of how to screw up a sure thing, the Nintendo DS version of LEGO Star Wars II is easily the 'must avoid' release of the year. Other systems get a stylistically pure and super fun title. Meanwhile, the DS is saddled with a buggy, incomplete letdown that wastes your money and good will, deeply tarnishing LucasArts' reputation.

Some boss battles are absolutely thrilling, and the plot, while somewhat convoluted, definitely feels like a proper X-Men story, but the dull, monotonous battles and lack of polish hamstring the game.

While games like "Time Pilot" aged gracefully, this side-scrolling space shooter feels old and inflexible, a crusty gaming battleship dragged out of drydock. All you can do is stare and go, "Wow, that's old."

Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal offers some fun platforming and treasure hunting moments, but its tedious mazes and poor story ultimately make it a drag. This one needed more time with a level editor and less time spent forcing players to repeat content.

If you don't have a multiplayer posse, you're left with a functional, but easy and uninspired PSP game that's functional without being pretty.

This is a true classic - it just isn't a lot of fun to play.

A huge step back for the series, ditching all of the elements that made it a party staple and offering little in the way of variety, or support for any previous SingStar games.

We'll give Major Minor's Majestic March credit for a creative concept, but this middling rhythm routine should have been a WiiWare release or half-priced budget title. And until the latter occurs, we can't help but think you'd be better off marching to your own beat.