The Short and The Terrible: Games I didn’t care enough to finish 2013

Killzone: ShadowFall:   Momentarily beautiful but deeply devoid of substance, Killzone:SF was so unmemorable I entirely forgot I had played it until I made this list. It's unfortunate because the basis of the narrative had the potential to be extremely compelling as a metaphor for the Isreal/Palestine conflict but the game is bland and toothless.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter

This game is as horrible and boring as rumored. I liked the previous MOH and respected it as a tribute to the lives of soldiers. Warfighter takes that good will and shits on it with a pained grimace.

Spider-Man Web of Shadows:

Web of Shadows is well remembered as the Spider-man game to beat, mostly due to its open world nature and free movement. While WoS does both better than any other Spider-Man game, I found the controls to clunky and the mechanics repetitive.

X-com: The Bureau

What a tragic waste of talent. Too long in development, and originally a first person shooter, it has all the ingredients of a great game. Using design inspiration from X:Com Enemy Unknown in both art and mechanics combined with a squad based third person shooter perspective, The Bureau slows time to allow a Mass Effect style radial wheel to assign tactics.

Unfortunately the extended development cycle has stripped this game of any inspiration. I made it past the first major set piece with little or no effort on my part and quit playing the game. I might give it another shot.