Despite the amazing storytelling experience that easily feeds the craving for postapocalyptic adventures, whether or not the sci-fi story is worth the full sticker price largely depends on how long you'll want to stay in Metro 2033's world.

Exit isn't entirely immune to style-over-substance accusations, and while it certainly doesn't suffer any shortage of prettiness, plenty of satisfying puzzle-solving still manages to stand out among all the polished sights and sounds.

This is an arcade blast based on timing and violence, and it’s a ton of fun if you don’t approach sports games as simulations of the real thing. This is a videogame in every sense of the phrase.

This is nice to look at, but a lack of content prevents it from holding your attention for long. In that respect, Skydrift sort of serves as a distraction game to hold you over until the next major release shows up.

The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered is a lovely collection of two classic titles that allows them to shine. There's still roughness that comes from age, but the areas of the game that shined the most, including its atmosphere, script and voice acting, remain as excellent as ever. Most of the adjustments to the two games make the rougher parts more palatable to modern gamers. You still need to have some patience for the PS1-era of action/adventure games, but if you do, it's well worth it to see one of the greatest cult classics in video game history.

Ultimately, Transformers: War for Cybertron is a game for Transformers fans made by Transformers fans.

NHL 18 finds itself in a strange spot. On the one hand, there are significant changes to the gameplay modes and basic stick handling. This is especially true of Threes mode, which could've become a stand-alone, downloadable game due to the amount of content it possesses. On the other hand, the AI is flaky and undermines quite a few modes, especially Hockey Ultimate Team. NHL 18 remains a fun title and a good choice for those who are interested in the series but don't want a semi-arcade hockey mode.

As a whole, NHL 20 is still NHL like it always was. There are incremental changes, but there's still a lot more to be done. Be a Pro remains completely untouched, and the minor additions to other offline single-player modes are sobering. The presentation and animation take a small leap, and HUT seems slightly less grindy with the addition of Squad Battles and a more transparent model to receive card packs without being forced to spend real money. The new eliminator modes in CHEL are equally fun, but at the end of the day, this year doesn't feel as significant as the last. I'm curious where the franchise goes next year with the prospect of several new consoles on the horizon, but it has to step up things more than it currently does.

Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons is a fun little beat-'em-up that scratches the itch of obliterating a ton of foes at once. The roguelike elements and multiplayer provide some nice added value, but unfortunately, it quickly ends up feeling pretty repetitive. It doesn't quite match the absurd polish of something like Streets of Rage 4, but it manages to be a darn fun time nonetheless.

Something of a more slow-paced, strategic spin on the open world genre. It still delivers on intensity during action sequences, but it's a game that rewards advance planning and meticulous tactics to a greater degree than an instant-gratification game like "Saints Row" doesn't.

Strider is a great example of how you can reboot an old arcade game with modern sensibilities and still keep it true to its roots.

Cronos: The New Dawn feels like an average game coming on the heels of the amazing Silent Hill 2 remake. The reasonably fun gunplay is dragged down by a lackluster story and occasional moments of annoyance. It has a lot of cool ideas, but none of them quite hit the mark in the way I hoped. It's still a perfectly fun little survival horror romp but doesn't quite go anywhere above that. It's absolutely worth a shot if you're looking for something to fill the Dead Space-shaped hole in your heart, but it could've used a little extra punch.

Playing it may bring back memories of the multi-disc RPG epics the PlayStation often played host to, full of promising storylines and lovable characters. They often felt like they fell a little short of the mark in the end, and Grandia III in some ways shared that feeling.

By no means a stand out in the genre, SWON does a decent job of providing a fun WWII shooter that is easily accessible to all.

There's plenty to like about Mayhem Brawler. The setting is unique among games in the genre, and the mechanics work well with the combat system thanks to its fluidity and diversity. The main campaign may be short and the unlockables list consists of one mode, but the three different endings and multiple campaign branches mean that there's more content to this game than originally believed. You'll have to rely on local friends for this one, but there's an absolutely good time to be had.

Do you want a completely average, by-the-numbers strategy RPG that revolves around giant robots? Relayer will probably scratch that itch. If you're looking for anything more than that, it falls flat. Nothing the game offers excels beyond "average," and there are enough nagging flaws and problems that you have to put some effort into getting to the good bits. There's the makings of a better sequel here, but for now, Relayer barely makes the grade.

Akka Arrh won't click with most people right away. It takes a while to understand how to effectively use the bombs and bullets while wrangling a free-aiming cursor. The inclusion of another level to travel to briefly when things get hectic can be a bit too much to handle all at once. When it does click, it becomes a beautiful destructive symphony that pushes a psychedelic landscape for a signature Jeff Minter title. This is well worth the trip if you want a shooter that moves away from the genre norms.

There's some great gameplay in Risen, but you have to trudge though too many problems to find it.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine has a few serious problems that Wolverine's healing factor just isn't strong enough to recover from: repetitive backdrops, cookie-cutter enemies, and inconsistent graphics and dialogue. It's quick, brutal, dumb and repetitive.

TwistedPixel's impassioned effort succeeds because they overlooked few details in production, properly balanced gameplay even though it means you won't see much of The Gunstringer at Major League Gaming events, and, most importantly, kept their ambitions for the game within the scope of Kinect's limitations.

Seems more like an expansion that adds levels, weapons, and a new campaign to further flesh out the storyline, rather than a standalone title.

Deception on the Gamecube is Deception minus online play, plus two characters everybody wishes were in the first runs of the game.

In the end, Grey Goo is an interesting attempt at a simple but effective RTS game.

Makai Kingdom does a great job of catering to the compulsive, play-to-crush RPG power-gamer without becoming as obsessed with micromanagement as "Phantom Brave’s" gameplay inevitably was.

All in all, I enjoyed Madden '10 on the Wii and can definitely say that it's the best version for casual fans.

ZombiU isn't the kind of game that merits purchasing a new console, but it's still exciting, if flawed. There is no other zombie game on the market that captures the tension and fear of a zombie film the way ZombiU does.

I'm not happy that players can't completely divorce themselves from the ground game if they want, as well as the fact that an overt Imperial from the ground game can advance down the Rebel Pilot missions if they so choose, and vice versa.

Toukiden 2 does so many things right not only when compared to its predecessor but also when compared to the sub-genre as a whole. The addition of new weapons is welcome, but the Demon Hand makes combat and traversal feel much faster than before, making up for the lack of a deep combo system. The open world makes the experience feel more epic, since you don't always have to rely on missions to get some action, a fact that's strengthened by the lessened reliance on the mission board mechanic. The story remains engaging, and although the presentation could be better, it is better than most other games on the platform. Toukiden 2 is certainly one of the better monster-hunting games, and fans of the genre would do well to check it out.