Pagan Online seems to have gone through development hell — whatever its original concept was, the game has been rewritten, cut into pieces and then reassembled in a different form. Its short f2p-style runs are fun at first, but then boredom gradually sets in, because it’s just rinse and repeat.

Corruption 2029 is a shameless clone of Mutant Year Zero minus everything that was good in the original game.

The best way to describe Pressure is “bland”. Aside from three entertaining boss encounters, it is monotonous and charmless.

While the story campaign is woefully short and there are very few gameplay modes, the controls and locations are quite pleasant.

The worst thing about this SimCity that it is much more interesting to read about its woes rather than build cities in it.

In 2013, Deconstructeam entered a Ludum Dare competition with a bare bones concept of a game. Now, a year later, this game has a price tag, but it’s bare just as it was back then.

Hell Yeah would've worked much better if it were a comic book or an animated movie. It is eye-catching and crazy just to the right degree, but, alas, so primitive as a game.

In an attempt to please all kinds of strategy players by adding city building, trading and wars, Grand Ages: Medieval miserably fails on all accounts.

Story is the worst nightmare in Kholat. I expected supernatural stuff, maybe dark sci-fi, or some evil KGB agenda… But the writers took all these three plot ideas, then added parallel worlds, secret objects and cruel science experiments. This is the most absurd and eclectic mishmash of themes I have ever seen in a horror game that tries to look serious.

This awful strategy game is not worthy of even a single playthrough neither on PC, nor on tablets.

Awful game design meets nonsensical story. Oh, and rivers of blood.

Strafe is not even close to the real first-person shooters of the 90s. If it were released in 1996, it would've died a quick death at the hands of its more polished rivals.

It's a game for Batman fans who really don't care about the form. Or for fans of Telltale's products who aren't picky about the content.

If you want to look at Earth from its orbit, the interactive museum of Adrift will take you on an atmospheric, beautiful tour "with no strings attached". If you expect a deep, thought-provoking, or simply engaging game about space — try your luck somewhere else.

Neocore should have billed this one as an expansion, as it looks very short and weak compared to the two previous offerings. It seems as if the developers were in a hurry to wrap things up.

A happy marriage of deep space horror and Souls-like ruthlessness, Hellpoint is a nice game, but there’s still some room to grow.

King’s Bounty 2 feels slapdash. It selectively ignores advances made by fellow role-playing and strategy games over the last 20 years. The role-playing part is underdeveloped while potentially stellar turn-based combat is playing the second fiddle. And the finale of this 35-hour journey is so abrupt that I had to ask the publisher if this is an actual ending.

A mediocre melodrama, awkwardly written into a shoddy walking simulator, its few bright ideas are poorly fleshed out and ultimately destroyed with a rubbish ending.

Ancestry of Lies is akin to movie-style experience of Telltale’s The Walking Dead, only here you will probably fall asleep midway through.

The heroine is always surrounded by dangerous forest creatures, but the game is not scary at all.

You get two for one price: a boring movie and a poorly-designed game.

Caesar in Gaul is a by-product of the studio’s massive attempt to fix Rome 2. New gameplay elements definitely improve the game, but there is no need to pay for them, unless you want a new piece of map and three more fractions. All you have to do is simply download the latest patch.

Mutant Games should have listened to the sermon of the mount for developers. First commandment: do not copy other people's ideas. Second: do not repeat yourself.

This game has systems aplenty, but, unfortunately, the balance is broken, and it feels like the developers didn’t know which parts to fix.

Skyhill shines during random events, as the developers created many tricky, unique situations that will force you to make some very tough choices.

Non-linearity is the key feature of Sir, You Are Being Hunted, but your range of clever tricks is limited, even though old buildings are crammed with things. Here, freedom is of a different kind, the one that is rarely seen in other video games – you pay for each of your mistakes.

Deadpool is like a crappy moonshine. It may lighten your mood for a while, but you can’t shake the gross aftertaste. And when the ending comes, you will be left with an equivalent of a bad hangover – just a couple of funny jokes plus a few severed heads.

A shoddy rehash of a classic RTS whose creators tried their best to put in as little effort as possible.

A mediocre Korean clone of Defense Grid: The Awakening with a few original bells and whistles.

An absurdist collection of pseudo-tactical puzzles.

Encyclopedia is the only decent thing about Space Program Manager, but the truly best part is not even in the game. The manual appendices have detailed descriptions of both US and USSR space programs, and even an interview with Buzz Aldrin himself. They should have published a book instead of a game, really.

This is a good remaster of a not-so-good game.

Sheltered’s biggest letdown is the lack of any emotional hooks. It is pretty much a grindfest where even the darkest scenes and seeing people suffering will leave you cold.

It's a game made of contradictions, and seriously hampered by unnecessary derivative elements and a hole-ridden script.

Bladeslinger looks stunning, but the gameplay is just as rotten as the monsters you have to kill.

Kill the Bad Guy gives you a rare opportunity to off several real-life serial killers, hordes of zombies, Adolf Hitler and even Voldemort, but the hassle is not worth it.

Warsaw looks nice, but it’s the substance that matters. The developers lifted pretty much everything from Darkest Dungeon, but failed to adapt those mechanics to suit the needs of a completely different story.

Rome 2: Empire Divided is a weird beast. I have no idea why Creative Assembly went back and made this expansion. Maybe this is a part of some corporate plan to mimic Paradox’s approach to their strategy games or just a sincere, but uninspired attempt to breathe new life into an aged game. But in any case, it is too little, too late.

Even after release, War of the Vikings is still at the Early Access level in terms of balance, variety and net-code.

Necromunda: Hired Gun throws the player into a series of fast-paced, noisy shootouts, but it’s never lavish on highlights, and the lack of emotion devolves the gameplay into a purely mechanical process. This poor man's Doom Eternal is utterly forgettable.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 doesn't look like the product of development hell at all. Despite the tight deadlines, The Chinese Room has created a decent game. Unfortunately, under such circumstances, it was simply impossible to replicate the scale of the first VTMB.

Weak story is the worst thing in Neon Struct, complete with two-dimensional characters, huge plot holes, and bad writing.

It’s no wonder you can’t find opponents to play Gravel online — the single-player campaign doubles as an excellent deterrent in this low-budget imitation of DiRT 2.

Morningstar reminded me of the movie Red Planet starring Val Kilmer: a promising beginning, a speck an intrigue in the middle and a devastating disappointment in the end.

A combination of a decent role-playing game and a so-so platformer — not the best result after four years of development.

The whole idea of Planetary Annihilation seemed *too cool* from the very beginning, so it’s no surprise that some of the promises were later forgotten. The developers made the obligatory stuff (after all, you can’t have an RTS about giant combat robots without said robots), but failed to include some of the most basic things that were present in Supreme Commander and even in Total Annihilation.

Conan Unconquered is too empty and lifeless, not to mention unoriginal. It feels like a mod rather than a full-fledged game from an experienced studio.

The Old City: Leviathan is good only for one thing. Leave it running on your computer and go to sleep. Let your friends think that you’re philosophizing all night long.

A mediocre commercial remake of 2007’s Zombie Panic: Source. Even 6 months in Steam Early Access did not make it better.

It all boils down to this: One Piece is just not a fun beat-‘em-up game.

The concept of We Happy Few has so much potential, but it feels like there were two teams with different level of talent working on this project. One team used this elaborate alternative world, stark visual style and and intriguing story, tried to lift it up. The other team was responsible for imbalanced, clumsy gameplay, pulled the game down. The result is 30 hours of very mixed feelings.

Even though the game’s weak attempts at humor work better when you play it with friends, compared to Magicka, Legend of Dungeon is still a snoozefest.

Redshirt paints an intriguing and, unfortunately, quite plausible version of humanity’s future. Too bad that this simulation lives by itself and doesn’t really need you to play it.

Whenever developers turn to surrealism while making a video game, they sometimes forget that their goal is to produce an actual playable game rather than a bunch of psychedelic paintings. Dali Games fell into this trap while working on its debut adventure Lucid Dream.

The worst thing that can kill an arcade racer is grind. Little Racers has it in spades.

The developers seem to revel in their weak game design as if saying, “Yes, we know that our quests are atrocious, enjoy!” No interesting conversations, no stories, just emptiness decorated with mediocre puns and overly dumb situations. The same emptiness permeates the main storyline, which riffs on age-old cliches featuring UFOs, Nazis, Sherlock Holmes and medieval poems. There is no thought behind this madness, and all these quirky characters don’t come off as actual people.

To some extent, Urban Empire is a game that plays itself. Buildings grow higher and higher, factories crop up on empty plots, citizens open up new shops - all without your input. It could've been a fun zen experience, but everything is artificial and lifeless, and, despite milktoast graphics, the game at times is too sluggish.

I bet you won’t remember a single character from Fuse by the time you’re done with its campaign.

Yet again, Rebellion surprised me. I mean, you have to have a very special talent to turn team-based zombie killing into a chore.

A fun, light-hearted take on Formula 1, F1 Race Stars offers a great opportunity to beat any of well-known drivers, including the current champion of the world.

Malicious is an exercise in primitivism that should've stayed on PS3.

Betrayer is like a decaying old mansion. Inside there is leaky roof, holes in the floor and walls… Yet the beautiful black-and-white façade still looks amazing.

The Complex is hardly a game, but rather a bunch of videos glued together with a shallow story. It would be unfair to compare it to true interactive movies like Telling Lies or Detroit: Being Human.

It's a simple, bright adventure game that you could play with your kids… if not for its problems with story, animation, voice-overs, characters' motivation and questionable creature design.

Even if the developers will fix all the bugs in The Great Whale Road, it will still remain a depressingly boring game.

Portal was stylish. The Talos Principle let us enjoy its scenery. Magnetic is dark, dull and unfriendly.

Shinobi Striker is in a dire need of maps and modes, and looks like the developers have no idea on how to tackle this problem.

Three or four hours into the game, and your interest in F13 will inevitably fade — this game desperately needs more variety in situations. All sessions are too similar, and, if you are lucky enough to become the first victim, you will have to remain a spectator for the rest of the session.

It will take you 3-4 hours to complete your first adventure in Ashwalkers, and after that you will realize that it should have ditched the out-of-balance survival layer and presented the story as a pure visual novel.

Noumena Studios is very different from Bioware in everything, from scope and budget to storytelling.

As weird and ironic it sounds, given the score, this is the finest game in the Lost Planet trilogy, and the most successful title ever made by Spark Unlimited. Because compared to the abysmal Lost Planet 2, this mediocrity is a huge step forward.

A pale imitation of Castle Crashers with an empty multiplayer lobby.

A weak retelling of a mediocre fantasy book.

Ryse is very simplistic, but at least it’s beautiful to look at. No wonder Microsoft made it a launch title for Xbox One – it is an ideal introduction to slashers. Unfortunately, if you have played other, better-designed games, Ryse will quickly disappoint you.

After getting an upgrade or a new gadget, you have to backtrack through already cleared out locations. And this is just one of Blackgate’s many missed opportunities.

Two years ago, I criticized the original Dead Island for its storyline that was nonsensical even by the usually low standards of the ‘zombie’ genre. Well, Riptide plunges even deeper. And don’t even dream of exploring the game’s open world – there is absolutely nothing worth your time.

A bit more polish on the story, better attention to technical details and improved camera/editing would have turned it into a masterpiece. Still, this solid interactive thriller is absolutely worth one full playthrough.

As an introduction to old-school classics, Evoland is just too boring, and most veterans are not that nostalgic to blindly forgive its shoddy attempts at game design.

Indifference. You will feel absolutely nothing when playing Sword Coast Legends. There are a lot of elements that make a good RPG, but they do not meld into a coherent whole.

I can’t recommend Disorder to anyone, be it puzzle aficionados or fans of gut-wrenching stories. It could have been appealing to hardcore veterans of N and Super Meat Boy, but there are too many better alternatives nowadays.

Even the cooperative mode can't smooth out the many bumps of Tempest.

You don’t have to think about tactics in Combat, not really – just shoot to kill and watch your six. Forget territory control, since there are no strategic points except your HQ. Faultline Games also designed 5 new maps, added a couple of assault rifles, reworked the interface a bit… and that’s about it. Since you don’t need to own the original Natural Selection 2 to play Combat, and the two games are actually incompatible, the developers nearly fragmented their tightly-knit community. But fans did not fall for the bait – Combat’s servers have been almost empty since day one.

The only thing Duels of the Planeswalkers lacks is, I think, a draft mode, because Hearthstone already has its Arena. And, naturally, they must bring back the Two-Headed Giant. Aside from that, Magic 2015 is really good, truly a second wind for the series.

The original game was akin to an epic novel. The remaster feels like an abrupt, kitschy fanfic.

Little Big Adventure: Twinsen's Quest is a remake of the 1994 game. Fans curse the new game for its visual style and plot changes, but I managed to get some enjoyment. The colorful world of Twinsun hasn't lost any of its former charm.

Conglomerate 451 repeats itself ad nauseum: 75 missions will take you on a journey through 6 small maps filled with murderous women in kilts and goons in sweatpants. The developers did try to randomize levels, but could not hide the lack of variety.

Shoddy graphics, clunky camera, a stump of a story - this game is rife with shortcomings. But, if you yearn for Commandos-style gameplay, this is probably the best option for you so far.

A low budget horror — in all senses of the word.

Jump Force is an interesting experiment, but for its handful of merits there is a ton of annoying shortcomings.

I really feel sorry for Ghost Warrior 3 - this is the first game in the series that had a potential to finally rival Sniper Elite. Unfortunately, things like weak stealth mechanics, awful story and pointless open world really let it down.

It’s a good thing that Subject 13 is astonishingly short, otherwise we could have had another Moebius on our hands. The game could have won people over with its story, but the writer had given up halfway through, and the rest is just not worth your time.

Amongst the many sins of Mars: War Logs, the total lack of originality is the worst one.

A roguelike with skin-deep gameplay mechanics that tries to mimic Dark Souls and ultimately fails.

There is nothing even remotely decent about this game; wherever you look, you’re bound to find only glaring mistakes.

It’s a one-off replacement for your daily meditation rather than a full-fledged game.

Murdered is a one-note game bent on repeating the same formula over and over again.

You can safely skip this DLC if you don't care about the fate of the Omega station, the ending to the Mass Effect: Invasion comic book, or Aria's personal journey.

Intriguing as a concept, the core idea of The Dragoness turned out to be a half-baked disappointment on arrival, especially its turn-based combat.