Opinionation.

I will openly admit that I'm an opinionated bastard.

When I play a game that doesn't live up to my expectations, I will criticize it. If I continue to play it, despite my criticism, and I am continually less than impressed, in all likelihood, I will criticize it repeatedly. Such is the case with Shadowrun. Yes, I have been highly critical of the game and, frankly, I just don't see why it's lavished with praise by some folks. No, I don't think my opinion is inherently the right one simply because it's my own, but when multiple people on many sites have the same complaints and when the game's overall sales seem to line up with said complaints, it tends to make feel that my opinions are credible and my criticism justifiable.

For the sake of everyone's sanity, I won't repeat all of my criticisms of Shadowrun, but I wanted to say that I believe there is a marked difference between repeatedly criticizing a game and "whining".

For example, here's what a sentence about Shadowrun which I consider criticism: "For $60, as a multiplayer only game, Shadowrun doesn't deliver as good of a multiplayer experience as titles before (or after) it, lacking a lot of things which add longevity to multiplayer titles such as custom avatars, custom game types and persistent stats tracking."

Now here's an example of what I'd consider whining: "LOL this game sucks, all of you who bought it are losers, FASA sucks!"

Never once have I posted anything on these Shadowrun forums which looks like sentence number 2. Ever. Yes, I've stated that I feel FASA screwed us by dumping out a product that wasn't as great as they hyped it to be or even as good as it could have been and then, apparently, abandoning it. Yes, I've complained that patches were slow to come and that some of the changes were, in my opinion, asinine. But these were all well written, opinion-based, criticisms. Never once did I belittle anyone who enjoyed the game, never once did I tell anyone that they were wrong for not sharing my opinion.

So when I'm called a whiner because my opinion of a game differs and is unfavorable and/or highly critical, it doesn't sit well with me. If what I type is "whining" when I'm openly criticizing a game and it takes several paragraphs to type, I'd hate to think what statements like "LOLZ SR SUCKS" would be classified as.