5. Haze
Metacritic: 55%IGN: 4.5/10Gamespot: 6/10
Haze is a distant memory now but prior to its release in 2008, it was a highly anticipated game. Developed by Free Radical, which developed the heralded TimeSplitters franchise, gamers thought that Haze will usher in a new era of first person shooters.
The many faults of Haze included its poor graphics, absolutely terrible AI, and an uninspired multiplayer. Haze's failure played a large part in Free Radical's closure in 2008.
4. Elder Scrolls Online
Metacritic: 71%IGN: 7.8/10Gamespot: 6/10
An MMORPG set in the universe of the Elder Scrolls, Bethesda was banking on the success and popularity of its previous release Skyrim, to push Elder Scrolls Online into a serious WoW competitor, if not a WoW killer.
Elder Scrolls Online had a patchy launch with server issues and a trove of bugs. The game's troubles did not end after the launch hiccups subsided. Players soon realised that their initial wishes of a multiplayer Skyrim was not to be found in Elder Scrolls Online. They got everything they hated in an MMORPG and nothing that they loved in the Elder Scrolls series. The game by itself was not bad but it failed to meet expectations and subscriptions promptly tanked.
The WoW killer could barely keep itself alive.
3. Titanfall
Metacritic: 86%IGN: 8.9/10Gamespot: 9/10
Titanfall, the unique FPS-with-epic-mech-battles game was intended to be the "CoD-killer". It was lauded for its unique gameplay during its beta where players were offered a taste of its mech combat. The out-of-mech combat was not bad as well. It included some unique and futuristic mechanics such as jet pack assisted double jumping and wall running. CoD would later go on to copy some of these mechanics in its own futuristic games.
However, when the game released, people's raised expectations quickly got squashed as the game came with no single player, a very constrained multiplayer experience, and overall a very clear lack of content. The multiplayer was limited to 6 players on each team and there were only 3 mechs. The game came with only 16 maps to choose from and gun variety was not something to write home about either. Adding on to this was the fact that it was very hard to play with friends, with the party system experiencing tons of connectivity bugs that eventually turned many die-hard fans into pitchfork wielders.
Don't get me wrong, Titanfall's core gameplay was still unparalleled in the FPS genre but paying $60 for a game with a clear lack of content will leave a sour taste in most anyone's mouths.
2. Call of Duty Ghosts
Metacritic: 73%IGN: 8.8/10Gamespot: 8/10
Call of Duty Ghosts came out around the same time Battlefield 4 did. As usual, Activision put a ton of money into marketing their flagship franchise. Too bad it was getting rekt all over by rival franchise Battlefield's newest game in the series, Battlefield 4. While CoD developers were patting their backs on their new unique in-game dog companion, the Battlefield 4 team was demoing epic city battles with entire skyscrapers falling down. The best dynamic map feature CoD could come up with was a short clip lauding the impressive physics of stacked up wooden logs tumbling down in-game.Players have long anticipated an engine overhaul for CoD as the engine that it has used since Modern Warfare was looking quite dated at this point. CoD developers were on a different page though. It must've been too costly to bring up an entirely new engine and the developers only admitted to modifying and improving the existing engine. This was much to the chagrine of CoD players as they watched on the sidelines as Battlefield showed off vast 64 player battles that included tanks, ships, helis, and jets. All of this to the backdrop of gorgeous graphics and a dynamic battlefield environment.
Falling logs vs collapsing skyscrapers? No matter how much Activision spent on marketing, Call of Duty Ghosts was technologically several steps behind Battlefield 4 and this time around, it was hard not to notice.
1. Destiny
Metacritic: 76%IGN: 7.8/10Gamespot: 6/10
Activision and Bungie marketed Destiny like you've never seen a video game ever marketed. First of all, the game was rumoured to have a budget of $500 million from Activision. $500 million for a single game! In comparison, GTA V only had a $265 million budget. The marketing drive included a $6.7 million TV ad campaign, among many other initiatives. It's thus not surprising that there was tremendous hype around Destiny pre-release.Not to fault the consumer, Destiny, as a game, did have a lot going for it. For one, it's an FPS MMORPG. This merging of two massive genres had not been attempted very often largely due to the immense resources needed to operate such a game. Players were promised a unique progression system that included farming for exotic weapons through co-op missions. These missions almost always ended with epic boss battles where the bosses would usually drop high tier loot if killed. Players could then take some of these weapons into PVP matches akin to those found in Call of Duty or Battlefield. The world was also promised to be vast and the graphics gorgeous. Plus, Destiny was being developed by Bungie, the much beloved game studio behind the Halo series. With all these upsides, who can fault the players for being absolutely and irrevocably excited.
Unfortunately, things didn't go so well after the game's launch. The single player campaign proved to be quick, bland, and boringly easy. In fact, GameSpot posted an article claiming they beat the campaign in 16 hours. Many parts of Destiny's missions often followed an overused formula of "defend this robot from wave after wave of enemies as he tries to hack some computer". Boss fights were not that much unique either, and many players found themselves just following the traditional hide-and-shoot formula over and over for each and every boss. The co-op reward system was also a source of complaint. The weapon reward system mostly consisted of a dice roll and many parties found themselves in situations where one player would get some amazing weapon while others would be loaded with trash, even though everyone spent the same amount of time and effort. The single player/co-op missions became a place to grind out levels and weapons and to be honest, no one really likes to grind the same missions over and over again. The fact that the missions were bland and uninspiring didn't help the situation.
With the tremendous amount of hype around Destiny, players didn't expect to be fed a boring and quick campaign with uninspiring enemies, and then to later be forced to grind out the same boring missions over and over lest they fall behind their peers and get absolutely crushed in PVP. Destiny, shortly post-release, was evidently an unsexy mashup between WoW and CoD, with each part not really augmenting the experience of the other.
Since then, there has been multiple updates and patches to the game as Bungie has stated that there is a significant long term plan for Destiny and the investment doesn't end when the game hits the stores. The game is significantly better than its post-launch state but it definitely did not live up to the massive hype around it pre-release.
