Past the Hype - 2013

[Past the Hype focuses on the games that have been featured in the monthly The List, that failed miserably in reviews. Its my way of saying, sorry I as was sucked into thinking this game was going to be good]. All of 2013 edition.

Aliens: Colonial Marines 
Was such a failure, even the developers don't want to man-up to creating the game.  so what should have been a slam dunk, churned into an air-ball.   Metacritic slams it with a 43/100, user score 3.3/10.

Dungeonland 
What could have been a nice alternative to Magicka, we get a repetitive buggy mess with no real point to it. Developer responds by downplaying the expectations.   Metacritic gives it a 67/100.

Dead Space 3
Introducing Micro-transactions and coop play does little to move a story or series forward.  Metacritic gives it a user score 5.8/10.

SimCity
As if the always on DRM for a single player game, wasn't cruel enough.  Servers were crashing  and burning, even when in play.  Screenshots of burning cities became cliche.  The small city limit also made the SimCity game feel crippled, and that was by design.  Metacritic gives it a 66/100, user score 1.7/10.

Age of Empires 2 - HD
They idea of bringing back one of the greatest RPGs, to a modern system, with all the expansions bundled in, see too good to be true.  And it was.  What was delivered was steam networking (a plus) and ...well..that's it.  Nothing else added. Nothing HD about it.  No update of the user interface, so elements you'd expect today in a RPG are still missing.  Graphics are still dated, but added resolution.   This basically means you can't read anything on the screen.  Buggy.  To add salt to the wound, the wonderful Forgotten mod was added later, but for for an additional fee.

Star Trek
Should have seen this coming after the Aliens fiasco.  Coop games based on movies, don't work.

Plants V Zombies 2
Does anyone even know this is out.  Poorly marketed, Free 2 Play model managed to kill the magic of the first.  The idea of only aquiring tools ala cart, is very disappointing.

DOTA 2
This game is a torture in repeatedness.  You do the same thing over and over.  Zero strategy.  I'm told that it'll take a lifetime to master.  Well, so does chess, but I'm not going the 1st half, is generally same thing every time. 

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
Failed to capture the magic of the XCOM game.  Sometimes, you shouldn't branch out.

Space Hulk 
Failed to capture the magic of the table top version.  Sometimes, you shouldn't branch out.

TAKEDOWN: Red Sabre 
Its hard to through a Kickstarter under the bus.  But when you fail to deliver to expectations.  You go under the bus.

Batman: Arkham Origins
Please stop.  You had a good thing, why ruin it with the cheap annual money grab.

Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know! 
This is not the Adventure Time your looking for.