In the end, this game tries to evoke the fun and charm of Soul Calibur and backs it up with the signature Renaissance-era style and operatic music, but the mostly text-based story and dull, tiresome combat with the same few enemies over and over really make this pretty much a cheap cash-in.

Avoid Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed at pretty much all costs.

Don't let the goofy characters and otherwise sharp-looking visuals fool you; this game is all flash and no substance.

I've heard rumors that 2K only allowed Duke Nukem Forever to be resurrected in an attempt to recoup a fraction of the money they spent on the game through 3D Realms, but I don't think it was a good idea to bother. I've also heard that Gearbox knew that they couldn't possibly deliver an actual good game in a reasonable amount of time, so they worked on it for about a year and just tossed out what they had so that they could make their own real sequel from the ground up. If that's true, then I can see a glimmer of good coming out of all of this, but Duke needs to be redesigned and reworked with very little of the old games behind.

This game should not have made it past the concept stages, not for a property so well-loved like Marvel, since there's no execution that could have fixed this, either.

This game should not have made it past the concept stages, not for a property so well-loved like Marvel, since there's no execution that could have fixed this, either.

Maybe the next Bellator game can be a full-featured MMA simulation experience, but this first title is just not going to work.

Aliens: Colonial Marines certainly offers a wealth of reverence of the movie it's aping, but the efforts by TimeGate and Gearbox Software seem misguided and tone-deaf - and that's not even considering the wooden gunplay, often-broken cutscenes and terrible AI.

Overall, though, I really can't recommend this game, even to fans of the show. It almost feels as if the developers spent more time on making this look and feel like a cartoon and just forgot to do much more than a basic game.

Flatout 3 does wind up having one mildly redeeming feature: it won't screw up your computer when you inevitably delete it in disgust.