Past the Hype - 2014

[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 2014 edition.

I really have no idea how I missed following up with The List - Past the Hype feature for all of 2014.  In part, I tend to wait for mid December before hamming out the games that where more hype then gameplay, and December gets busy for me.  But perhaps, its because there simply were not many games that got buy in 2014.  Perhaps I'm not as easily fooled by marketing, or I'm listing less games overall (~10 less the 2013)  ...or maybe the games were just better.  Probably a bit of all that.  Anyways here we go...

Thief
This was largely predicted, that the Thief reboot would never live up to its original namesake, primarily due to its own past successes. A bit like Doom 3 flop after Doom 2 success.   Secondarily, you have a genera it originally helped solidify, but in present day is well established.  Its nice to see the IP back, but unfortunately it was bound to be just another stealth game.

Planetary Annihilation
This is another one that had high expectations, primarily due to the developers past successes.  After the past dumbing-down with SupCom 2; people were so hungry for a new SumCom, this game was crowd-sourced in quick time.  Unfortunately, what people got was a buggy boring mess that simply failed to deliver on both promises and expectations.  Its also a good lesson to learn, that if you crowd source something, you will invite more critics that will tear you apart.