One of those mixed bags years for me.
Tomb Raider Reboot should've been something I would really love, given that TR is one of my all-time favourite gaming IPs. And it was the best 3rd person cover shooter I ever played (and I don't like them at all). But it was just a horrible Tomb Raider game, TR in name only, with none of what actually made TR what it was.
I tried to like Bioshock Infinite, but I gave up after about two days of playing it. I don't know, it seemed like a great game, but I just couldn't get into it (and I liked Bioshock 1 quite a bit).
GTA V was something I was looking forward to, and while I've enjoyed it, it didn't manage to be better for me than San Andreas (with only Trevor parts resembling the feel of SA), and I even liked Sleeping Dogs from 2012 more than it.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was right up my alley, being placed in Age of Sail in the Caribbeans. Or I thought so. I liked the "Assassin's Creed" parts of the gameplay, but naval combat was just way too arcadey for my taste - this is probably my problem, since I've played games set in that period throughout my whole gaming life, and always appreciated a more realistic approach to ship combat of that period. I've managed to tolerate it for some time, but eventually I quit the game for good.
The Last of Us was something I was suspicious about from early on - while I'm a sucker for the zombie apocalypse genre, that early bits of the game I've seen were giving me a big red flashing warning sign. It eventually turned out that, for me, that was correct sentiment - while I appreciated the production values, I didn't like it much, gameplay for me was too shallow and the story was just barely managing to keep me interested in going further. It actually made me stay away from games that were "like Last of Us" for some time, almost making me miss A Plague Tale: Innocence when it launched.
Metro: Last Light was a worthy successor to Metro 2033, but it focused more on gun play, so it lost a lot of that survival horror feel of the first game. Still liked it quite a bit.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was a pleasant surprise - a standalone "expansion" (I don't quite remember, but I don't think it has anything to do with Far Cry 3 at all) that is set in a weird world of 80s VHS "lasers and dinosaurs" aesthetics. Pure silly fun.
Rayman Legends was another worthy successor, but it was, for the most part, more of the same.
DOTA2 was a welcome addition to MOBA genre, being the official sequel to the original Warcraft 3 mod. I played the original, but phased out of that by the time DOTA2 hit the market, so can't really say much about it.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is something I really liked, though in retrospect, after playing A Link's Awakening remake, I found it to be not as good as some of the 2D classics.
State of Decay was a really pleasant surprise for me - it was A/AA game set in a zombie apocalypse, with a little bit of GTA-esque feel to it, with a lot of engaging mechanisms and fun gameplay. Hitting zombies with a car door in a drive by never gets old.
Indie games had quite a year - Papers Please, Rogue Legacy, Don't Starve, The Swapper, Risk of Rain, The Stanley Parable, Kentucky Route Zero EP1 (the last two being my favourites, both being very quirky in their own unique ways)
2013 was the beginning of CRPG revival - two Kickstarter games that were sequels to their 80s/90s originals were launched to a success that year, starting CRPG second renaissance - Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is my second favourite game from this year - it had an interesting mechanism of the player controlling both characters at the same time with different gamepad sticks, and while not heavy on the puzzles, its gameplay and story were quite satisfying.
My favourite from this year is Kerbal Space Program, a space flight simulation game about researching and developing your rockets/spacecrafts (and then piloting them) to send your virtual astronauts to missions in space throughout their solar system. It was Early Access (with official release in 2015), but with support for mods it got upgraded by the community very quickly with a lot of content. It's hard to think that making your first stable rocket and achieving orbit would be such a thrill, but there it was. Loved it then, love it now, played it for years and years to come.
Ultimately, it is hard for me to give my vote to anything this year - but though I personally don't find GTA V to be that good, on overall it probably stands out with its sheer amount of content and production values, so, reluctantly, that's where my vote goes.
