Infinite Crisis is polished, snappy and a well-designed MOBA, all things considered. But its mechanics don’t address the long-standing issues with the genre in a meaningful way, or do they do much to set the game apart from its competitors. As a MOBA title where you can play Shazam, Infinite Crisis is your bet. As a mechanical differentiator from League of Legends, it suffers a little from Me Too Syndrome.

Overall, Costume Quest 2 is one of those rare occasions where I can say that more of the same is just what the doctor ordered. With the right level of new polish to shore up some of the first game’s rough spots, along with a funny and interesting new story, this is one sequel that might be better than the original in every way. If, like me, you love the Halloween time of year and are nostalgic for the days of trick or treating and sugar-fueled nights… pick up Costume Quest 2 for its budget price of fifteen bucks and make it a new tradition every year. You’ll be glad you did.

I can’t deny the fun factor of Exoprimal, but for this to be a great game, they need to address the shortcomings of their cross-play. So here’s the TLDR, would I pay sixty dollars for Exoprimal? No… It’s a forty-dollar game at best right now. If you don’t have Xbox Game Pass, Personally, I would wait for it to go on sale.

At the core, MechWarrior Online delivers deep, fun tactical combat, serving it up with a fantastic visual experience. There are all sorts of nuances and tricks to discover that help set skilled players apart from newcomers. But all of that is squandered by an incomplete wrapping that’s more focused on selling items than covering the basics. This is reinforced by the high price of some item shop ‘Mechs.

As it stands right now, Sea of Thieves is an empty playground of wasted potential that requires too much investment from the player with too little in return.

Multiplayer online games rarely, if ever, emerge from the developmental womb spit shined and bug-free. That doesn’t mean that Marvel’s Avengers gets a pass for releasing a multiplayer game with poor multiplayer, but it does mean that, as with most MOG’s, the game will only get better. Right now, Marvel’s Avengers is in its baby Hulk infancy, but it has a bright future as a World Breaker.

I had such excitement for Diablo: Immortal through development, and the game itself is a solid experience and well worth the time. I'm not sure how well it will hold up over the long term as an MMO, but it's a good effort, and if I could just score that alone, it would be a 9. However, the monetization is very player unfriendly currently. Rather than getting out of the way and letting players enjoy the game and then spend money because they want to support a game they love, we are consistently being leveraged into feeling like we have to spend an indeterminate amount of money just to have a chance. Heck, you might have to shell out money just to make a clan to play with your friends. This isn't the worst monetization I have seen, but it's still a far cry from good.

Crash Team Rumble impressed me more with every completed match. Those hoots and hollers from SGF make a lot of sense now, as it's one of those games where one late-game maneuver can spell victory for your team, and it can happen in an instant. Not being able to connect and play the fun game was frustrating – almost as much as connecting, playing one match, and then watching the game crash – but once I was in, I was having a blast. If Toys For Bob and Activision continue to support this game through building its roster, adding new modes, and offering more silly cosmetics, I can see this game enjoying a long and successful run. They just need to make sure we can log on to play it.

What does it do well? It does a number of things right. Necore nailed the look and feel of 40K. The many weapons and gear pieces are accurate in name, description, and functionality. The enemies, factions, and lore details is immaculate. If any game deserves a “10” in this area, Inquisitor does.

Even with Death end re;Quest 2’s visual issues the combat and skill system keep the gameplay enjoyable. It’s quite fun watching monsters smash into each other and bounce off the arena walls like taking a part in a game of Beyblades. Just be sure you know what you’re getting into because there are several periods of downtime when experiencing the beautiful visual graphic novel portions of the game.

All in all, FIVE: Guardians of David is a very solid, well-priced ($24.99 on Steam) ARPG that will give players a lot of satisfaction and many hours of enjoyment. Fans of ARPGs will find a lot to like here as there is no question that it stands alongside the likes of Diablo, Torchlight and Titan Quest in a very favorable way.

If you don’t own The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing on PC already and you’re a sucker for a solid ARPG experience VH won’t disappoint. Despite its shortcomings, VH offers a solid ARPG experience, beautiful setting and some great control layouts. As a PS4 player it s a game I definitely want in my collection.

As a fan of Destiny 2, I am enjoying Lightfall. It definitely had a bumpy start, especially if you’re a big story buff, but almost everything after the campaign has been solid. I wouldn’t say anything blew me away, but nothing has been horrible either. They stuck to the tried and true formula that has worked for them for quite a while now, and while I hoped for a bigger spectacle around some characters, Neptune itself, or even the raid, I am wanting to play more and do more.

Biomutant is a fascinating game, one that definitely belongs in a foregone era of gaming but somehow still works in today's industry. The world is massive and packed with things to do, combat is fast and fluid save for a few minor issues, and the story definitely keeps me interested throughout. There's jank, sure, but it's jank that somehow works in the game's favor, almost as if it's part of the game's identity. If you come in expecting a Game of the Year candidate you may leave disappointed, but if you're looking for a new adventure brimming with personality, Biomutant is absolutely worth your time. Just be prepared for that fast travel mechanic; it still shocks me every time.

Despite the mentioned issues, Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice is a good VR game on the Quest 3. Fast Travel Games tells a good story and nails the atmosphere of the Vampire: The Masquerade setting. Playing as Justice has some fun gameplay and many moments that make you feel like a vampire hunting down their enemies. But to make Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice shine, I would have liked to see more polish and depth to the vampiric power/discipline system.

Achilles: Legends Untold feels like an unfinished product still working through Early Access. Combat balance and the limited amount of loot would be at the top of my list that needs improvement. You could follow that up with a wider variety of boss fights, a deeper crafting experience, and the writing and voice acting are marginal at best; maybe double down on the writing staff and cut out the voiceover altogether if there isn’t enough budget to do both well.

Overall I enjoyed the Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC and finding out about the endings and what it could hold for the future of the series. The Re:Mind DLC was not long, but I didn’t really expect it to be long at all as it was just neat wrap up to a great story so far. The Limit Cut Episode brought a lot of questions, and I have so much speculation with how it ended, which I’ll not state here in order to avoid spoilers. I did not like high level requirements for the Limit Cut Episode, but I love the game so I will level up to unlock the endings for myself. Either way, the KH3 Re:Mind DLC was very cinematic with its cutscenes, and a very enjoyable DLC for a very enjoyable game.

Sands of Salzaar, for all intents and purposes, feels more like a work in progress as opposed to a final release. If this were an early access preview, I would say that each of the core components has potential and just needs to be fleshed out. As a final product review, I must say that even though Sands of Salzaar promises an intriguing blend of RPG and strategy elements, it fails to provide the depth and complexity needed for long-term replayability.

If you aren’t a Batman fan, I’m not sure that there is enough that stands out that dropping full retail on Gotham Knights is a smart move. The game could certainly use some patches, the full four-player mode isn’t out yet at release and I feel like holiday releases may quickly overshadow this game. That isn’t to say that there isn’t a great concept, but like Batman, it's crushed to death under all the debris.

I really want to recommend The Outer Worlds on the Nintendo Switch. I’ve seen some developers do a great job bringing triple-A titles over and I had high hopes for Obsidians’ Sci-Fi RPG. However, after spending a week pushing through pretty rough gameplay experience, it’s clear that this port just doesn’t cut it. Too many sacrifices were made to make it run and it shows. Should you play The Outer Worlds? Definitely. Should you play it on the Nintendo Switch? only if you have no other option.

For all of the things that it does well, Forge feels like it needs more time in development and beta to achieve its potential. I really like the game's model of instanced PvP, and enjoy Forge's dynamic third-person combat. The overall features feel unfinished, however, and while it looks like Dark Vale Games is aware of Forge's missing - and necessary - elements and is working to include them, the game in its released state requires a bit of faith in the developers to make it what it should be. The core gameplay experience is fun and frantic, but Forge will need to attend to a more robust feature set to encourage the dedicated community it requires to succeed.

You will find great value for the cost of nothing with Prime World. It’s also a fairly small download, currently clocking in at 1.36GB, so there’s no real reason why you shouldn’t try the game if you’re a fan of the MOBA genre.

Between the flat power curve, unexciting items, and unlocking all your abilities by level 20, Torchlight 3 ultimately suffers a dire pacing problem. Getting to the end game is a fairly non-exciting and long grind and not enough changes with the experience at the end game to keep me playing. I think the developers could get there with a few good patches that make items exciting, enchanting less painful, and skills synergize better together but they have to recognize the problem exists to begin with. The groundwork is there for a great Torchlight installment if they would listen closely to player feedback and fix these pitfalls. Until then I’ll keep checking in with the patch notes and hoping for a No Man’s Sky-esque comeback but for now if someone asks me how Torchlight 3 is I’ll simply respond with “Eh, it’s okay”.

Tower of Fantasy is a whirlwind of enjoyable combat, exploration and mini-games, mixed with a nefarious gacha system and the annoying proclivity to time and level gate progression. The ability to create your own character, team up with other players, participate in a huge guild, and battle hordes of monsters with a deep yet simplistic combat system tips the scales just enough to warrant the hype that it has been given. Tower of Fantasy dips its toe into greatness through extensive gameplay systems and an accessible game loop that has broad appeal. No matter what you like doing, whether it’s team play, exploration, PvP, or dungeon running, you can find it here. Just temper this fantasy with the realization that you should never spend more than you can afford. Hotta built Tower of Fantasy as a marathon, so there’s no better time than now to enjoy the journey at your own pace.

Risen 3: Titan Lords sets out to cater to a niche of the RPG market and does so, for the most part, successfully. The pirate setting differentiates it from other, similar, games on the market and the open and explorable world is vast and potentially very dangerous. The game is crippled somewhat by a lack of graphical shine, and the storytelling leans heavily on lazy cliches and trades mystery for clarity and motivation. Despite those problems, players looking to plunk a parrot on their shoulder and slap a patch over their eye then head off in search of buried treasure will find a lot to enjoy.

I liked After Us in the end, I appreciated the story it told and the imagery it used to tell it (even if most of it was as blunt as blunt gets). However, what could have felt like a two-hour conversation is bloated into a ten-hour lecture series due to overly large worlds with very little to do in them. It seems like there was an internal struggle between "brevity in storytelling" or "filling the world with collectibles," though unfortunately, the solution they reached was far from the most efficient. If you can stomach the slog, there's a beautiful, important message to be heard in After Us. Unfortunately, and ironically, it's buried in excess.

Great in short bursts, maybe an hour, as you can have fun and make a little progress, complete a challenge, and see your experience progress. Maybe two at a push to run some Shadow Tower, or work on the Club World. But those meaty, satisfying online experiences need a heavyweight MMO to deliver them and, for all its colourful charm, Trove just isn’t it.

At the end of the day, you’re going to have to decide for yourself if EA’s business practices with Star Wars: Battlefront II are something you can live with. If you can, you’ll likely find that Star Wars: Battlefront II is every bit the Star Wars game you’ve been looking for.