I played some pretty impressive games in 2011. Saints Row: The Third, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, L.A. Noire, Let’s Golf 3, Gears of War 3, Killzone 3… Hey, what’s up with all the 3s there? Hm, I may have to revisit that soon… Anyway, I played some great games last year. Of course, I also played my fair share of stinkers as well. Games that may have been just plain bad or games that failed to live up to the claims developers made or my own expectations. Whatever the case may be, these games just failed to catch my attention the way most games do. There was just something about them that disappointed me to almost no end. What follows here is a list of the five games that I felt were the biggest disappointments of the year. Some you may agree with, a few you may not – in my humble opinion, these games just stunk up my collection.

5. X-Men: Destiny

I had some pretty hopes for this game. Being a huge X-Men fan, the chance to choose how your mutant character would develop was very appealing. However, with the limited actual RPG choices available, coupled by monotonous enemy design and AI and some of the worst beat ‘em up mechanics of any game, X-Men: Destiny failed to deliver on so many levels it may as well should not have been an X-Men game at all. Or a game for that matter.

4. Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters

Though slightly better than the feature film this game is tied in to, Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters is a let down on multiple levels. Linear, repetitive, dull… those are just some of the words I would use to describe this game to anyone interested in buying it – or even just playing it. Despite some creative weapons and combat gameplay, calling this one an action game would be an insult to some of the great games in that genre.

3. Homefront

While I was incredibly impressed with the overall story of the game (and I do hope a sequel is made to expand upon that and fix what needs to be fixed), Homefront just had so many gameplay flaws that I cannot justify calling it anything less than a disappointment. Terrible enemy AI, frustrating friendly AI and some of the worst FPS mechanics since the first PlayStation era, I was barely motivated to finish the game on the grounds of the story alone – but that was just barely enough.

2. Duke Nukem Forever

Talk about having your nuts kicked in. Gamers had waited for years – 14 years – for this game to finally hit shelves. And when it did, not only did we discover that Duke Nukem Forever’s brand of quirkiness never left the 1990s, but the gameplay and creativity of the team behind it seemed to have been lost back then as well. Sometimes I still wish that this game was still stuck in development hell. The torture of waiting for the game to be developed was so much better than the torture of actually playing the game itself.

1. Rage

I know this is going to piss a lot of you out there off, but I felt that Rage had promised a lot more than it actually delivered. Uninspiring quest, a cookie cutout story with no incentive to complete the game and some of the most uninteresting and non-relatable characters in recent years just take away from the technological marvel that Rage set out to be. I cannot deny the game a top spot on the merits of graphics and tech, it deserves that for what it does, but I believe the focus may have lied to heavily with that side of the game with the creative side suffered from lack of attention.