Destructoid

Bottom line here is what you'd expect -- Green Day: Rock Band is a must-have for fans of the band and Rock Band. Even if you're not the biggest fan and the very thought of Green Day doesn't make you want to rupture your own ear drums with a screwdriver, there are some great tracks here you'll want to add to your collection. In the end, though, the package doesn't reach the bar raised by Harmonix's first single-band outing.

ModNation Racers does do some great things and deserves all the credit in the world, but it also deserves a healthy dose of criticism for those things it just couldn't get together properly. At the end of the day, there's no justification for a game that forces two loading screens on you before it even begins.

You can build the most magnificent castle in the world, but if the foundations are made out of wet feces, everything's going to crumble and fall apart before your very eyes. Alpha Protocol is a castle that's collapsed in crap. Proof that even the most accomplished of visions are worthless if the fundamentals aren't in place.

All told, Red Dead Redemption is a stellar title. While I have some issues with the story and characters, the simple joy of interacting with this world more than makes up for those complaints. Add in a compelling multiplayer component and you have one hell of a game.

Retribution is rarely fancy, but it’s quite competent, and there’s depth to be found in Jack’s arsenal of combos, disarms, and take downs as well as the tactical possibilities presented by Shadow. Dead to Rights: Retribution is Volatile Games’ first current-gen project and while the game is rough around the edges, they’ve laid a solid foundation.

Even with those flaws in mind, The Forgotten Sands is a solid action-platforming title that comes rather close to re-capturing the feel of 2003’s The Sands of Time. While it misses the mark of nailing the same sense of magic and wonder of the original trilogy, fans who had missed this style and approach in 2008's Prince of Persia offering should welcome this new-yet-familiar adventure with open arms.

It's downright frustrating, actually, as with even the slightest tweaks, Lost Planet 2 could have been another winner for Capcom, and the epic sequel fans had hoped for. As it stands, Lost Planet 2 is a shell of a potentially great game, brought down by bizarre, dated, and counterintuitive design decisions. And that's a shame.

It would have been silly for EA to completely overhaul the already-solid Skate engine for this third installment, so it’s really no surprise that the game does share quite a few similarities with its predecessors. But there’s no mistake that Skate 3 simply isn’t a rehash of what’s coming before. The create and share features offer up so much potential that EA may have presented a problem for itself.

The most brutally upsetting thing about Nier is how much I desperately tried to love it. The game earns so much merit for the enchanting story and the endless potential, but it willingly and insultingly spends all of its credit on terrible pacing, unforgivably inconvenient gameplay and the fact that it repeats all its dungeons at least twice. Every time I started falling in love with Nier, it swiftly and violently battered that love out of me, seeming to do its utmost to be as unlikable and exhausting as possible.

Alan Wake has some very definite faults, but this is still a superb experience that manages to outweigh all of its problems with some truly unique and special moments, tons of character and a story that manages to be convincingly inventive despite its tendency to veer into somewhat silly territory. Anything it could do to irritate the player is quickly made up for with a consistently striking character, intriguing cutscene, or thrilling stand-off against an encroaching force of possessed and gibbering mountain hicks.