CPUGamer

The highlight of the game by far is exploitation.

Rockstar took a look at those demands, took a few core principles, and then gave us a Max Payne game worth talking about and absolutely worth playing with a ballsy willingness to not compromise on their own artistic direction.

It's a fun game that takes too long to get going anywhere, but its combat is so slick and refined that everything else around needs to step up to that level of quality. The universe of Diablo is most certainly destroyed, but the game is far from it.

It very much feels like Creative Assembly has peaked creatively.

The Darkness II is a decent shooter, but there is nothing in it that is amazing; it's respectable but mostly predictable.

BioWare captures the scale of the conflict well, but always focuses on the people involved in it. It's pretty amazing just how badly EA disregarded the heart of the game – the characters and the world – when they began their marking blitzkrieg, but don't worry, it's oh so definitely there – Day 1 DLC, controversial endings, and questionable use of resources be damned. This is a fine, lovingly crafted game with a clear vision despite the realities of corporations and damning business practices.

For all the things that don't work well, the exciting combat and deep world make KAR a very worthy game to play. It's a shame Electronic Arts is doing such a poor job of promoting it, as there is enough here to make the foundation of a very solid franchise.

The game just gets weirder and weirder, as you keep playing, and it's an all-in move from Remedy to just keep pushing its story to its absolute limit of insanity. It reaches its zenith of crazy by the last episode of the game, and it's just such a great culmination of everything that's happened before, that if there were such an award as Best One Hour of a Game, Alan Wake would take the prize.

Bottom line is that on paper, this is an incredibly deep and varied game, but time and again, the reach of the programmers vastly exceeds their grasp. Even months after release, there's so little in this game that's working as intended, that only the most desperate die-hard fan of the genre should even consider this game.

Serious Sam 3 might not be for everyone, but it's the type of game that made first-person shooters a genre all their own, and serious – at the risk of abusing the word – gamers should absolutely give this game, if not the whole series, a serious look.