Final straw... I'm done.

I played fewer games this year than I ever have because I can echo a lot of your frustration with the industry. Holy crap i looked back at my history, i hardly played any new tittles in 2011, that's an eye opener. New games i purchased in 2011 were Homefront, Bulletstorm, Portal2, LA Noire, and Gears. So 5 games O_o ! Of those Homefront was a clusterfuck of a launch. Portal 2 I liked a lot it was just really short, Bulletstorm was a niche game it was ok but most people bought it to get in the Gears beta. LA Noire while it had some great ground breaking elements came down to pretty gimmicky gameplay . It wasn't disappointing evaluating it as a stand alone game. But when you evaluate it against the Rockstar family of games with GTA and Red Dead, it was a pretty big disappointment in size and playtime. Then Gears, i'm happy with. The biggest disappointment is the total lack of support from people on my FL to play multiplayer with. And its' a very unique type of game so if you don't have a group to play with, it's had to play it alone and have a good time. Now the game has mostly boiled down to grinding out medals which is pretty boring. So whiel I started out on a big high, and the high lasted a pretty long time, now that i'm just grinding shit out my enthusiasm has dropped a bit. I don't plan on buying any more 'new' titles this year, haven't bought anything since Gears. Skyrim is on my xmas list mostly because i knew if i got it, it would pull me away and i wanted a few months with gears since i waited 3 years for it :)

After the sting of Homefront, i started really evaluating the games and the developers (not publishers) behind them and decided to ignore all the hype around these games and passed: Duke Nuke'm Hunted Rage Dead Island Brink Which is good because they all blew.

I hear you. I'm to the point where I pretty much only buy games when they are on a Steam sale for less than $10. I was recently convinced by a friend to buy MW3 and have regretted it dearly. Games are becoming not fun. Nothing but a bunch of cookie cutter clones. What ever happened to innovation and new ideas?

I thought Deus Ex was a good standalone game. My husband really enjoyed Arkham City. We both liked Gears3 although I burned out on it faster than he did. I heard Enslaved was good and the demo was fun. I am thinking when I tire of Skyrim I will buy it. That may be a long time. Perhaps the smaller developers are getting crowded out from presenting decent games to the market because as consumers we tend to buy well known titles first...and then are disappointed by lack of innovation. @ Cryptic, sounds like it is a season for you that you are making some changes in your life...I wish you well.

Indeed! A lot of crap games. I have also realised I am spending too much on garbage and I need to get back to the way I used to game. Purchase a few quality games a year and not get suckered into getting all the rehashed and un-inspired crap that they keep vomiting at us.

More RB3? Count me in. And am I the only person who absolutely loves Dead Island? I've held off from purchasing any new games because I'm still hooked on bludgeoning zombies.

hard to argue with the industry angle. As more people game, more crap is going to be released before it's ready. Does this mean you're giving up Pinball FX2? Be a shame to see that kind of talent not show up on top of the next table's leaderboard.