A smart, original evolution of the previous game's concepts with plenty of new things to see and do, from its new protagonist to its faster combat and engaging loot system.

An exciting and lengthy adventure with interesting characters and a host of items and features that make its mix of combat and puzzle-solving very attractive. It's better if you also played the original game, but even if you didn't, Darksiders II is definitely worth looking at.

This is a game where visuals, audio, and mechanics sync up in a way that feels effortlessly organic. I'm sure the work put in to making it that way was anything but effortless, but it paid off. Sound Shapes is a reminder that great, creative things can be done in the music gaming genre.

If you honestly care about the universe and its characters, you'll probably take what you can get in whatever format you can get your hands on, but at times this story feels like it'd be better suited for a short manga series than a video game.

It's a weird mixing of genres that might leave diehard fans on either side of the genre line wondering if they'd even be capable of fully enjoying the game. But it ends up working out reasonably well.

This is most definitely a lazy, slapped together, overly expensive waste of time that nobody need bother play. And yet, for some bizarre reason, all I could think about while playing The Expendables 2 was that it didn't have to be this way.

There aren't many action games in this particular mold to begin with these days, so those with fond memories of Deadlight's spiritual predecessors will likely have a reasonably fulfilling few hours here. Without an existing sense of nostalgia for the source material, though, you may find Deadlight's minor flaws collectively outweigh all the things it does right.

A terrific idea that just doesn't pan out as well as it feels like it should. All the little tweaks and decisions, from level list to the soundtrack to the decisions about which moves to include or exclude eventually start to weigh on the overall experience in a meaningful way. It turns something that should have been a joyous update and revival of a tarnished franchise into something that simply misses the mark.

Dawnguard offers far more than a self-contained episode in the Fallout vein--which it should, at double the price--but it falls just short of the scope of a traditional, pre-Internet boxed expansion pack. Still, it's a fine way to expand the already immense content offering of Skyrim, especially if you're still actively traipsing around those snowy hills in search of more adventure.

Given Square Enix's recent track record, it's easy to see this game showing up on iOS devices in the not-distant future, but if you're looking for an endearingly entertaining rhythm package to occupy your 3DS right now, Theatrhythm fits the bill.

All I want to do is go back and keep trying for better scores and greater progress. In this regard, Spelunky is less a game than an obsession. If it does get its hooks in you, it will get those hooks deep, sending you into a downward spiral of torrential swearing and tear-choked misery the likes of which you may never completely recover from. And I mean that as a compliment.

The story in Spec Ops: The Line isn't amazing, but the way that it's told really stands out and, in many ways, saves the entire project from being a complete waste of time. But that doesn't make it easy to recommend.

If the fundamentals were a little more refined or the new ideas a little more fully implemented, I'd feel better about recommending it wholeheartedly, but given the new elements in play here, you can at least take heart that Traveller's Tales isn't resting on its laurels.

It's designed in such a way that only pixel-perfect aiming and split-second responsiveness will get you through its missions unscathed, but your ability to react quickly and take in your surroundings is so severely compromised that you'll die, repeatedly, in each attempt.

To put it succinctly: it is more Civilization V to add to your copy of Civilization V. If you still have even a flicker of a desire to play more Civilzation V, that news should be all you need to justify picking up Gods & Kings.

The gravity-shifting gameplay offered might be complete enough for game-starved Vita owners on the hunt for something to do with their device. But do manage your expectations, lest you be disappointed by how hollow Gravity Rush is underneath its breathtaking shell. This is a game that does one thing very well. If you need more than that, then Gravity Rush isn't for you.

A third-person shooter that feels caught between doctrines--it's not tactical enough to feel like a deep, strategic experience yet it punishes run-and-gun tactics just enough to prevent fans of those sorts of games from having a great time, either.

Capcom built this huge place to run around in but didn't fill it with anything interesting. The saving grace: Capcom's expertise in building robust, customizable, and super fun combat systems pays off.

The combat has enough depth and variety to keep you interested for the duration of the story and beyond, but in terms of what might have been, what should have been, Dragon's Dogma falls gut-wrenchingly short.

That's pretty much the whole of Game of Thrones. Sad dialogue, combat, sad dialogue, combat, sad dialogue, more sad dialogue, something outright horrifying happening, sad combat, and so on repeated in varying orders for a bit more than 20 hours.

Its cooler moments are offset by a long list of missions that aren't engaging at all. You're a man with an ever-increasing list of insane powers, but the tasks you accomplish with those powers are usually pretty ho-hum. Add to all that a script that makes you want to turn the sound down and a dose of awkward control quirks and you've got a run-of-the-mill open-world game.

Its cooler moments are offset by a long list of missions that aren't engaging at all. You're a man with an ever-increasing list of insane powers, but the tasks you accomplish with those powers are usually pretty ho-hum. Add to all that a script that makes you want to turn the sound down and a dose of awkward control quirks and you've got a run-of-the-mill open-world game.

It's such a rare thing that my interest in continuing to play a game keeps increasing not just toward the end of the game but past the end, yet somehow the more Diablo I play, the more Diablo I want to play. It doesn't do anything especially new with the action-RPG genre, but it does all the old things very, very well, and sometimes that's more than enough.

While fans might have a hard time processing the dramatic change in tone, it's approached with a seriousness and conviction that I respect, and frankly, have come to expect from Rockstar.

The 360 game offers enough value for block-building neophytes to justify its existence in a world where Minecraft has already seemingly been wallpapered everywhere you look for the last couple of years.

The single-player story mode is still astoundingly deep and the challenge tower is an exciting and maddening climb.

It can't even craft a halfway competent action game out of the myriad things it stole from much better action games.

The Pinball Arcade provides a safe virtual home for your pinball worship, complete with accurate re-creations of real tables and appropriately realistic physics.