Have you ever got a game that was recommended to you by a friend, or seemed really good by all the reviews, and then you get the game and find otu it's not that great? I'll list off some of the games that I've played that I believe are extremely overrated. Feel free to do the same.

Halo: Combet Evolved - So, I first played the first level of the game while on vacation and thought, "Looks cool, I think I'll get it." That was a mistake. At first it seemed good at the start, but then it got monotonous. You end up going through the same environments again, the plotline could've been stronger, and it was frustrating at the way enemies would just spam you with hordes of themselves. I didn't even bother going after Halo 2 after playing through this.

CoD: MW 1 - Okay, so I don't actually own this game, but from the parts I've played, it seems a bit overrated. I played the first two or three levels of the campaign, and while it was kind of entertaining, it didn't strike me as anything special. I have played all the other CoD games, but I really can't figure out why this game is getting so much gushing praise. The multiplayer also doesn't strike me as anything special, either, but then again, multiplayer never has really impressed me.

Ping wrote:Have you ever got a game that was recommended to you by a friend, or seemed really good by all the reviews, and then you get the game and find otu it's not that great?

Fallout 3. It just wasn't my cup of tea it was to hard and to complicated. I hated how everytime you wanted to switch weapons or check your health you had to use that Pip-Boy thing.

MW2. Probably the most overrated video game I have ever played. Boring campaign, horrible story made of plothole after plothole, 3 shot deaths, cheap weapons, horrifying balance of realistic and not realistic aspects, cheap perks, bad balancing, lack of realism in weapons (AK-47s are NOT more powerful than M16s, UMP-45s are not as powerful as an assault rifle, a Barret 50-caliber would not be weaker than an intervention) and then Akimbo weapons, no quality level design, killstreak rewards, anything explosive, etc. And then spec-ops. Just not fun. There are also some smaller things that just tick me off, such as a Brazilian militia speaking not a word of Portuguese and only Spanish.

The Guitar Hero series. They just ruin great songs by making them overly difficult and adding notes where there aren't, and then they "doctor" up songs to make them more playable (See: Hotel California in GHWT)

HL2. Also overrated. Not as much for me to say, I just find it immensely boring. Same goes for CS:S and TF2.

Mirror's Edge was way too frustrating.
I may have missed quite a few. I'll see if anyone else can name any other I agree on.
And Ping, about Halo, you judged the entire game on the campaign, which wasn't as big as MP in Halo and nowadays most FPS's have those problem except upscaled anyways. (See: First paragraph)

F.E.A.R. - I was downright disappointed with F.E.A.R., mainly because of the kind of opposition you face. At first I thought F.E.A.R. was all about ghosts and apparitions, I thought the player was supposed to fill the role of a Ghostbuster-like-person... with guns, and that's a nice concept, it's certainly different, I was eager to fight ghosts, but what did I get? Generic soldiers.

Now, don't get me wrong, generic soldiers is an ok addition to any FPS game, it has become a standard of sorts, but if you are going to have generic soldiers, then you better have something else to differentiate your game from any other FPS in the market, if not... well, then you are in the same level as F.E.A.R., an uninventive game with little more than "scares" going for it.

Another problem I had with F.E.A.R. was how they handled the story, they did not provide me any reason to care about the story, not in the beginning, not when I was scavenging through the pointless work logs of the average Joe, not even when I was in the place where it all supposedly started, when it was revealed to me that I was the son of some ghastly woman... or something, I don't care. Oh, and then they threw ghosts at me, big deal, I had lost interest long ago.

The level design is... unremarkable, not bad, but unremarkable, I mean... "First Encounter Assault Recon! The game where stuff happens! Tremble at the sight of a mildly dark office in a suburban area, explore the chilling setting of the city's water works, experience extreme action! ...in a barn." Yeah, whatever.

I guess my main gripe with F.E.A.R. is that I have played dozens of mods for Half-life 1 that are more innovative, entertaining and polished than F.E.A.R., a game produced by a big name developer. I paid for something that I could have gotten from an ok mod for some other game I already have.

Fluffy_the_ic wrote: And Ping, about Halo, you judged the entire game on the campaign, which wasn't as big as MP in Halo and nowadays most FPS's have those problem except upscaled anyways. (See: First paragraph)

That's why it got such praise? I'd rather play by myself then with others, thank you very much. Nobody seems to care about people who like to keep to themselves.

I definitely agree on Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2. To me Modern Warfare 2 falls in that category. I just can't get into the game despite trying. Fun single player, fun multiplayer, but just not all everyone says it is.

I think "overrated" is a tough label to apply - there are several very popular games that I am either completely disinterested in or I dislike, but I'll acknowledge that those are probably instances where my tastes simply don't line up with the majority.

I never enjoyed Half-Life 2 (one of the few games I have that I never could find it in me to play through completely), and I've never been interested in the Halo series (I don't own any of the games, but I played a decent amount of the original Halo MP with friends). I got an XBox 360 recently and it was bundled with Left 4 Dead, and I didn't really enjoy that either. However, I'll admit that those probably are all series that deserve their accolades - I could care less about them, though.

Most games probably deserve the accolades they get. There are enough games on the market that the consumer's not starved for choice - and the Internet is a great public feedback indicator. Marketing can push sales, but it's not generally going to develop satisfied consumers (the "friend"s who recommend the games, as the OP said).

That being said, there are plenty of games that due to under-marketing are probably under-rated, but overrated? I don't know that it's fair to apply that label. I guess it could be a comparative rating, but I try not to do more than measure a game by how much I enjoy it, not by how well it compares to a different game.

Maybe my scope is small, but I like all the games I own:

-SWBF2
-HALO: CE
(I have other games, but they're mostly free-to-play titles.)

I'd have to disagree with HALO: CE being overrated. This is an opinion. As Mav said, "overrated" isn't a label that's easily... Labeled.

However, I loved the gameplay, story, music, and idea in general of HALO. I hated it at first, and ragged on my friends for liking it, but going through it again, I really enjoyed it. It's my belief that this generally applies to most games.

Even though I still like it a lot, Mario Kart Wii isn't that great. Even though the AI always cheat, this is egregious. Just as I'm in first place in the second lap, I'm either struck by lightning or knocked over the edge. Not to mention respwaning takes forever, so if you're in first and you fall of the edge, any chance of victory you had is dead in the water.

I think the CoD series may seem overrated due to the series popularity, but the games are actually very good (for a while).

I don't think that Halo is overrated either.



The games I find to be overrated are Borderlands, Grand Theft Auto, MAG, Uncharted 2, and just about any Nintindo game with the word Mario involved.

Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, and Reach. I've really never seen why people think it's so amazing. Seems like a very generic "Humas = good, Aliens = pure evil"-based FPS that shares a lot of common ground with many other titles before and after it. It's not a bad game, as a matter of fact I find it quite fun. I just don't see it as the standout that everyone believes it to be.

I totally don't agree with HL2 being overrated. While I confess that I was too young at the time it just came out to follow all the marketing around, I must say that I thought HL2 is brilliant. I personally really do like the way the story unfolds and the way you're being guided along the lineair path you've got to follow. I think it's a great game, because there are not a lot of things that have bugs in them and the story is one of the better in the gaming world (IMO).

mswf wrote:the story is one of the better in the gaming world (IMO).

Hmm, I wouldn't say that the story itself is one of the best, but the way it's conveyed to the player, that's where the game really shines; I often refer to Half-life as an example when I'm discussing a well done execution in games, and I do believe that Valve nailed down that aspect.

Let's think about it, the plot of Half-life 1 was basically this: scientists studying teleportation and related materials open a rift to some other plane of existence and otherwordly creatures come pouring in, the scientists panic and die, while the player makes his way to the source of the rift and cuts-off the connection -- that's Doom right there! They took the plot of Doom and turned into something else.

Valve developed some very intricate -yet intuitive- methods of conveying objectives and the importance of certain locations or artifacts through visual means, you don't need instructions, you don't need a map, you don't need someone or something explaining the back story, all you need to do is look around.

The story is ok, not so original or glorious, but the execution is brilliant and that's where they got it right, that's what is really important, in my opinion. I mean, it doesn't matter if you have a great idea for a game, movie or book, if you can't tell that story right and make the player/audience/reader enjoy it, then you've failed; on the other side of the coin, you can do wonders with the simplest plots ("simple" is often a synonym of "good") by using of a well done execution.

lack of realism in weapons (AK-47s are NOT more powerful than M16s

Hold up. I hope this doesn't mean what I think it does, because the AK-47 fires a 7.62mm round, while the M-16 fires a 5.56mm round. So, yes, it should be more powerful than the M-16, because it does actually use a larger round. However, the 5.56 will tumble when it hits flesh, yet there's no way to effectively simulate this that I know of.




While I might agree that MW2 is a bit overrated, I've actually played it a bit, and don't think it is as terrible as I first feared. Mostly, I'd just say the game's worth a buy once the price goes down. I just wouldn't pay full price for it, since it can't (or more likely won't, without someone hacking the file formats) be modded, lean is gone, and there are no dedicated servers.


Halo is sort of overrated, but mostly because it's the first FPS that really played well on a console. If you play FPS on the PC, it's not that big a deal, since most of the features are things that PC shooters have had in some form for years.

IMO, Halo, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band.
I mean, that's not to say they're bad games.

Hm, other than those, I'm not sure. I don't think overrated is the best word to use.

Hebes24 wrote:Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, and Reach. I've really never seen why people think it's so amazing. Seems like a very generic "Humas = good, Aliens = pure evil"-based FPS that shares a lot of common ground with many other titles before and after it. It's not a bad game, as a matter of fact I find it quite fun. I just don't see it as the standout that everyone believes it to be.

There is a much deeper story line than that, with many additional story things on the side. If you run through the game as fast as you can with the TV muted and skip all the cutscenes, then yes the story may seem lacking.

SilvaDalek wrote:

Hebes24 wrote:Halo 1, 2, 3, ODST, and Reach. I've really never seen why people think it's so amazing. Seems like a very generic "Humas = good, Aliens = pure evil"-based FPS that shares a lot of common ground with many other titles before and after it. It's not a bad game, as a matter of fact I find it quite fun. I just don't see it as the standout that everyone believes it to be.

There is a much deeper story line than that, with many additional story things on the side. If you run through the game as fast as you can with the TV muted and skip all the cutscenes, then yes the story may seem lacking.

How can you judge a game to be overrated if nobody has played it or even rated it yet at all? (reach)

Grev wrote:How can you judge a game to be overrated if nobody has played it or even rated it yet at all? (reach)

I think he meant "overhyped" (not that I know of anything about Halo Reach; I'm just saying).

OK. I'm preparing to get flamed for this. Hang on a sec as I put on my hazmat suit.

Ok then.

Crysis. While it was a beautiful game, with the best graphics I (and a slew of other people out there) have ever seen, it was impossible for me, an insanely armored/armed super commando, to take out an enemy wearing nothing but a utility suit while shooting whole clips into him from my super-rifle. However, they had no problem taking out said super commando with 2 rounds from and AK-47.

It makes me mad.

Nihillo wrote:

Grev wrote:How can you judge a game to be overrated if nobody has played it or even rated it yet at all? (reach)

I think he meant "overhyped" (not that I know of anything about Halo Reach; I'm just saying).

It deserves the hype.