Mr VanOrd, you deserve a round of applause for this article. Bravo, sir. You echoed the sentiments of many gamers far more eloquently than many of us could. Especially concerning "dudes in heavy armor shouting words like "delta" and "bro" and "Go! Go! Go!"". You know, I like characters with a semblence of personality. Not a stereotypical army grunt yelling silly phrases. Mass Effect was the worst for this; at one point in ME3, an Asari gunship pilot said "light 'em up!" Ugh ... even the ALIENS are talking like every US Marine you've ever seen in a movie!

@Tseng It's just that I'm the opposite of you; I've disliked her in everything I've seen her in. Juno, X-Men 3, Hard Candy, Whip It and Inception (although I liked Inception and I'm one of the few people who liked X-Men 3 too). I don't think she can act, I find her voice grating and she comes across as a deeply unpleasant, sexist woman in real life.

@Faster_Bill It can reflect the storyline because David Cage's games (Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain) have both been very storyline- and dialogue-heavy games. So if you have an issue with Ellen Page, they're not the games for you because you're going to be seeing a LOT of her. It's not like, say, a main character in a shooting game looking like a famous actor. It's not like Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2 being modelled after a model. This is a high-profile actress who, although she'll bring in a more mainstream audience, she'll alienate those who don't like her. So it's really annoying that Cage has alienated his core audience for the kind of people who read celebrity gossip and wouldn't have played Beyond if not for a famous actress.

"David Cage has taken lot of flack since the release of 2010’s Heavy Rain ..."

"While Heavy Rain was criticized for what some saw as unimaginative gameplay ..."

Yeah, by idiots. If they bought Heavy Rain expecting an action-packed shooter, they don't really have the right to criticise. Nor should they; there are so few games like Heavy Rain, while more conventional games are a dime a dozen. And it remains the only game to ever make me cry, its connection to the characters was so great.

Having said that ... I'm not going to buy Beyond. Why Ellen Page? ANYONE but Ellen Page! And The Last Of Us has a character that is the spitting image of Ellen Page. It's a crappy, crappy year for gaming if you dislike Ellen Page, like me.

Hold on, hold on ... I actually really enjoyed Doom 3 but do you know one of the reasons it was "occasionally derided"? Because people criticised the idea that on a futuristic hi-tech Mars base, NOBODY had access to a roll of sticky tape so they could tape the flashlight to their guns. Along came "The Duct Tape Mod" to change that.

I agree with WeWerePirates below; I can't believe journalists are still defending Mass Effect 3. For the last time, Bioware don't give a damn about "artistic vision". If they did, they would've done everything they could to keep the original writer on board and, when changing writers, they wouldn't have changed the original dark energy plotline. The only people using the "artistic vision" excuse are people defending Bioware for such a horrible ending.

I can't believe you mentioned "With Authority". I remember that game! Good times ... I'm glad you had the Extreme Warfare series in here too. It's insanely deep but also insanely time-consuming. It's also very funny, since you get messages about Scott Steiner no-showing events and you can choose to do nothing about it. Just like real life!

"Some people have argued that in Mass Effect 3, BioWare has delivered something different from what it promised. This is irrelevant." False advertising is irrelevant ... ? Casey Hudson's exact words were "This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we're taking into account so many decisions that you've made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It's not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C." Guess what we got? And, Miss Parker, the relationship between the artist and the audience is already fractured. The ending already rendered OUR work throughout the series meaningless. For all the defenders of the ending who criticise the critics by saying we just want a happy ending or mention some twaddle about "gamer's entitlement", they trivialise a legitimate issue. There are more concerns about the way game developers operate now than there was ten years ago and developers covering their ears to their customers' concerns is going to do more harm than good. For example, right now gamers have raised over $30,000 for the Child's Play charity, brought together by a desire for the Mass Effect 3 ending to be changed. You don't think a sign of goodwill on their part deserves on in return because of some nonsense about how we're the audience and BioWare are the developers?

Listing homophobia as one of the reasons that people may dislike Mass Effect 3 is just childish and trivialises the real issues the critics of the game argue against. Points two and three touch upon the real issues but they're still miles off the mark. Perhaps the real crux of the matter has only come up in the last week or so but little sentences like "Mass Effect 3 has joined the company of games that have been associated with significance beyond their actual merits" just comes off as untrue. Part of the criticism of the third game is to do with the fact that Mass Effect 1 and 2 set a standard that the third game failed to live up to.

@Neo_Sarevok - I actually didn't buy MP1 but Max Payne 2 on PC was phenomenal (two words: Cinema Mod). Great story and Max's face really was much better. It didn't get very good reviews on consoles, for reasons I'm not sure about. Although to this day, the graphics on PC are fantastic. Not looking forward to Max Payne 3. Cover system, multiplayer and Rio De Janeiro means I'm out.

Gamespot, feel free to visit my house anytime and see just how clunky Spore runs on my PC. With the lowest settings and a lower screen resolution than my monitor has. Having said that, despite it crashing three times, I'm having a lot less difficulty with it than I thought I would.