I enjoyed Skyrim at first, but then took an arrow in the knee. Joking aside, the first few hours were enjoyable. Gone were the days where I had to quaff down health potions just to kill a single rat, I was being chased by the mother of all dragons and surrounded by a lush, detailed and beautiful world where I could kill things with both spell and sword in hand and not be forced to choose between them.
But as the hours rolled on, I hit a wall. Or rather, I scratched the surface and there wasn't anything underneath. The complexity, the depth, that Morrowind and even Random(Dagger)Fall had were gone.
It was all flash and spectacle and beautiful, but there was no pleasure to it from a certain point. I had become a werewolf in record time, and found no use for my new form. I even got rid of it in record time. There was no challenge to it, no tangible reward either. It was just there, as something the game expected me pass trough in a flash and never remember again. I had been appointed as headmaster of a school of magic, yet I could barely cast a spell over apprentice level. I didn't even have to fight the former master for the title.
I tried to stop the civil war by beating Ulfric to death with his own leg, but I couldn't, because he was immortal, just like every other character I tried to murder in their sleep. I get if they were related to the main plot, but none of them were, not in the least.
Skyrim was still enjoyable, being able to hold of of the damned scrolls in my hand and blinding myself every hour reading it was fun, but I felt it lacked the charm it once had. It felt too much like I was meant to breeze through all it's content with no effort. And while I did appreciate that, since I had to review it on a strict deadline, in the end, it just made everything look like filler. Also, the removal of spell making and the new enchantment system stink.
My Top 5 of the year would probably include:
-Deus Ex Human Revolution, while a flawed game in may aspects, it got a lot right a lot of the things that made Deus Ex tick. I'd also mention The Witcher 2, it was so close to being what I had hoped.
-Bastion, as you've said, was absolutely great. The atmosphere was superb, the sound, the visuals, even the story, by far the best downloadable game I've seen in recent years.
-Gemini Rue, just a superb adventure game. Also, props to The Blackwell Deception, another great indie adventure game.
-Men of War Assault Squad made RTT games fun again for me.
-And then came Portal 2, a game that got everything right. It was a fun, witty, challenging adventure that seemed to be built with the sole purpose of making me happy.
On a side note, when did one of my badges turn into Action Hank punching a pony in the gut? And can I keep it like that forever?