The biggest "Meh" of 2012

[megamegaman247]

Dishonored.
Got bored from the start and kept on in the hopes it would get better, eventually gave up.

the game was a bit short but i noticed myself coming back to it time and time again, that was my 2nd favorite game this year only behind ftl faster than light.

 

[Sir Shockwave]

Remember that game Binary Domain that released early in the year? Saw a few articles about it on websites and magazines prior to its release, and I could tell from then that it would just sink as another generic cover based third-person shooter. Hell, even its name was bland sounding. I ended up renting it much later on and, surprise surprise, that's all it was, a generic cover based third-person shooter. It's not broken or infamous by any means, I just felt like I was playing a Gears Of War re-skin with robots.

This. Binary Domain really had potential to go places, but for me the deal breaker was the controls. Who maps the Reload key to the middle mouse button? Seriously.

Also on the list, Diablo III AND Torchlight II, also Borderlands 2. Torchlight II I'd argue is weaker than the first game, Diablo III I never got around to finishing properly, and Borderlands 2 was a game you should only play once really - it's way too repetitive to suffer though successive times.

The crowning one though is Dishonoured - everything is blatantly stolen from other, better games. It's not the worst game that came out this year, but I will say it is the most disappointing. It doesn't help that for all the gameplay theft it does, it's BORING - which coupled with an incredibly predictable plot probably amounts to being one of the shortest amounts of time I ever spent on a video game. I don't expect the Iliad, but I do expect something above just how boring, lifeless and stale Dishonoured was.

 

[veloper]

"Meh" can apply to most games released every year. Mediocrity is the greater part on the gauss curve and there's too little difference to be worth arguing wether a game is just above or a little below average in quality. So meh it is.

It's only the rare excellent games and the horrible turds that really stand out.
The meh list is endless.

That's a pretty depressing view on everything. I mean, most of these games that came out a pretty much above average, that's kind-of why they are contending for game of the year. To think that something like Far Cry 3 or Dishonored is average is ignoring much of those games. I'm just using these two as examples.
Far Cry 3 had amazing voice acting and very unforgettable characters. Not to mention its world and AI interaction with animals and humans was pretty groundbreaking.
Dishonored had an art-style like nothing we have seen before. No game that I know of has been able to make its world look like an oil painting, and in 3D no less. Not to mention Dishonored also had a great mix of open movement in its levels with Deus Ex esque freedom.. Not to mention a very original story line and world in comparison to most everything that came out this year.
Not to mention all of the other great and unique games to be released this year (FTL, Journey, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, etc.). To say all of these are "average" is to be so cynical that it's unrealistic.

I said most games; NOT all games. I didn't even mention any games sofar yet.

You'll get no argument from me if you argue that FC3 and Dishonoured are above average (Diablo 3 is just a polished turd though).
Still notice how many people in this thread are calling Dishonoured mediocre already. That is also not really worth arguing over. Average or a bit above average...not enough of a difference to bring out the big guns.

The better question is what was great this year. That's a much shorter list in any case and such a thread can also get much more lively.

 

[MDSnowman]

Prototype 2. Wow, Prototype 2 really blew chunks big time.

And it's even more disheartening because it had some real potential to go somewhere but nope let's just settle in mediocrity because shit happens.

Honestly I had that problem with Prototype 1 and it kept me from buying the sequel.

Most disappointing game I played in 2012 was Diablo 3

My biggest pleasant surprise?
Far Cry 3. You couldn't pay me to give a crap about FC 1&2... but I shelled out $60 to hunt tigers with a bow and arrow and loving every second of it!

Is this what Ted Nugent feels like everyday?

 

[wolf thing]

halo 4, it was really bland, it looked great and its game play was fine if a little well tread. but the story was total shit, like major pile of elder house shite. so it left me a little disappointed with what was advertised as a character focused game, if you're into the multiplayer i could see how you could really get into it, but for my it was just meh.

 

[monkeymo4d]

Halo 4.
It does what it does well, but it's really just a big old pile of "meh" to me.
Well, the single player is meh. The MP is a big old pile of "Fuck you." to me.

In the words of 343indutries, "Adapt Bro" *Troll face*

I agree halo 4 was probably the biggest meh game this year for me.

The campaign was a massive cutscene fest with no real substance and the multiplayer is damn near unplayable after a while.

 

[T_ConX]

Mass Effect 3

Dear Casey Hudson,

Two months before Mass Effect 3 was released, you told GameInformer:

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.

-SOURCE

What the fuck happened?

Also, why do I have to pay $10 for a squad member that's already on the disc I paid $60 for?

Call of Duty 9

Why do you idiots keep buying these?

Assassins Creed III

Why do I keep buying these?

Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Remember how EXCITED we were for Anita Sarkeesian? How brave she was for not giving in to the trolls who wanted to stop her from making her videos?

Well, it's now been over SIX MONTHS since she got her funding, and she hasn't released a single video. TROLLS WIN!

 

[Andros83]

Darksiders 2 and Dishonored are my most disappointing games of the year.
But the game that made me feel the most indifferent?

Max Payne 3.
This game is both a bore and a chore.
Really fucking bland.

 

[Josee]

Borderlands 2. Which is stupid because it could've been pretty good.

I don't know what the fuck Gearbox is trying to do with their single player difficulty curve; it's all over the fucking place. I like a challenge. I don't like getting one-hit killed by a car, or always feeling too fragile to go rambo in a real fire fight.

They say there's gonna be lots more guns than the first game, but I'm yet to actually feel like there is. I hate the way they've changed rare drops so now it's almost ALL about farming the bosses and nothing else. I can't stand the stiff, plastic, barely animated character faces. It was okay in BL1, but it's horrible when Gearbox actually has a stab at injecting some real emotion into characters. Plus the humour got old and grating for me.

There's lots of improvements, for sure. The ice levels are pretty, the guns are a bit more interesting, Jack was pretty funny at first, the co-op system is much better, and so are the classes and their skills. But there are so many annoyances that I don't know if I'm ever going to play it as much as I played BL1.

 

[PPB]

My biggest "meh" is Guild Wars 2. It's the kind of game that was obviously lovingly crafted by its developers and looks ambitious from the outside. Once you get down to it though, it's nowhere near as innovative as it wants to be. Questing is "kill wolves until the bar fills up", dynamic events are just regular quests on timers, combat is still about pushing down number keys when they're not on cooldown. It doesn't even have a decent storyline like SWTOR to save itself.

Not a bad game at all, but shockingly underwhelming considering their whole "MMO revolution" campaign. Outside of their brilliant idea to make helping others a rewarding thing, I wouldn't even call it an evolution.

 

[TomSeyborg]

I must say Assassin's Creed 3 was a very big Meh for me. I rented the game for three days, and by the time I returned it I had completed the entire game already. I also don't get why we had to play through half the campaign before finally getting to play as Connor, a character who didn't have anything interesting about him.

 

[aaronobst]

Let's not forget the Skyrim-PS3 catastrophe...

Bethesda KNEW the game was broken, I've never seen such a slapdash way to treat consumers in this industry before

 

[Roxas1359]

Halo 4.
It does what it does well, but it's really just a big old pile of "meh" to me.
Well, the single player is meh. The MP is a big old pile of "Fuck you." to me.

Your new avatar, it fills me with joy.

OT: I have to say the Elder Scrolls DLC Hearthfire. Oh yay I get to make myself my own house in predetermined locations. Honestly if I wanted to build my own house I'd play The Sims 2. I'd also say the whole debacle with Skyrim DLC for the PS3, but that was more of a huge dick move on Bethesda's part.

 

[babinro]

Torchlight 2

I love Diablo 3 and so I got really psyched when I kept hearing how TL2 was the superior game in almost every way.

Bought the game on Steam sale and it was complete and utter 'meh'.
It's like playing Diablo 2 ten years later which is a dream come true for some people.
I just find the formula tired and couldn't force myself to put in more than about 20 hours into the title.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Biggest Meh for me has to be Diablo 3.

I can look past Error 37
I can look past the always-online DRM
I can look past the Auction House.

So, when looking at what we got for the game itself, all I can say about is Meh.

I don't think it's terrible. It plays... okay. I had some fun during my playthrough. Eventually though, all my interest for the game QUICKLY dwindled. And for how long I anticipated this, it's extremely disappointing that all I can say about it is MEH.

 

[triggrhappy94]

How do you double post an OP?

Anyways, I want to say RE6, but that's more of a "Why?" then a "Meh".

 

[OneOfTheMichael's]

In my opinion. diablo 3 was a big "Meh". I didn't play any other ones of the franchise but it just wasn't that fun.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Diablo 3 was a mockery steeped in 'meh' gameplay, and it's very far past 'meh' for me since it represents the antithesis of the sort of game Blizzard used to make. It's BAD. Very very BAD.

'Meh' is the perfect word to describe Torchlight 2.
It's lacking something, and I just don't know what. It isn't universally bad, I just don't really feel motivated to play it. By gameplay alone TL2 is lightyears ahead of D3's "Cookie Cutters ONLY" approach.

Halo 4 is right up there in terms of 'meh'. It's Halo. There is absolutely nothing new to see here, though the characters were a bit more interesting this time around (still cliche' but if you're going to delve into cliche', try not to make it boring).
It's the Quake 2 of its era. I don't really have anything else to say about it.

I'd like to name Resident Evil 6, but I've only seen gameplay from it, I haven't played it myself.
Anyone know enough to comment?

 

[Zenn3k]

Most everything this past year has been fairly "meh".

The most disappointing to me was Diablo 3. So disappointed with what all happened with that game that its turned me completely off Blizzard as a company. I have no desire to buy any more of their products, since they don't seem to be interested in making good ones anymore. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

The only game I've had any fun playing this year, that came out this year, has been Borderlands 2. Everything else that I played, I didn't play for long.