Don't believe the hype. Fez is slow and somewhat boring. You walk (not run), jump, climb, change perspective and collect yellow cubes, that's basically it. There is little challenge. You have unlimited instant respawns and there are no enemies (=no sense of danger), there is no time limit or any other limt. Fez looks nice, but the game's world feels large and empty. The music is at best unintrusive (one could say, somewhat boring, just like Fez itself). Last but not least, Fez is flawed from a technical standpoint. The game stutters and drops frames often.

This part of the IGN review made me wonder if whoever wrote this did so with a straight face: "Fez also forces itself on reality by tucking QR codes in secret spots. Scanning them gives players additional unlock codes. This means players need to find their smartphones, potentially download a QR-scanner application, or borrow someone else's device. One way or another, players need to stop playing and go out of their way to use a physical thing to interact with Fez." WTF?

I don't care if it's an indie game or not, it just isn't very good. It's like all these overly positive reviews are written by people who have never played any 2D games that are actually good and challenging. Recent indie examples of good games: Super Meat Boy and Cave Story (which Fez used as inspiration for its graphics). Interested in a good exploration-based 2D game? There you go, and it's freeware: http://www.robitstudios.com/treasure-adventure-game/

The taste Fez leaves in the mouths of people who know good games when they play them is "half-baked", both from a design standpoint and technically. As such, Fez is a 5 or 6 out of 10 at best.

(This review is based on an XBLA copy of Fez, NOT provided by the publisher.)

I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet but I've heard nothing but good things about it so your review is a little surprising.  I mean Edge gave it a 90 (along with a lot of other sites giving it the same or more) so it's hard to believe it's a 5 or 6 at best.

Just shows you how much you can trust "professional" game reviews nowadays. I on the other hand am not getting paid for my opinion, nor am I influenced by the game being "indie".

Indeed. As someone else called it: "Indie circlejerk"

I kinda have to agree with you after playing the demo.

From a technical standpoint it's hard to believe this game was in development for 5 years, it could use a lot more polish. It looks pretty rough at times, frame rate can dip a lot which effect control and the rotating effect itself sometimes makes the level look turned inside out due to the flat lighting. There's not much to render here, it's quite baffling why this can't run at 1080p at a solid frame rate.

Even though the controls are quite simple it still managed to mess up several times during the demo. Sure you can't die, but falling all the way back down because it glitches after a rotate, as in not applying it's own world flattening rules correctly, is pretty annoying considering the slow climbing speed.

Personally the music didn't do anything for me either but that may vary. It's not the instantly recognizable tunes of Terraria or the sweeping all encompassing music of Closure.
Maybe it's a bad demo. Where I wasn't really interested in Closure I bought that immediately after playing the demo, while with Fez it's the opposite.

I'm giving Sky Island a try now. A browser game with the same concept.

There was a lukewarm reception over at Giantbomb as well, I think the game just took too long to release and isn't so fresh anymore.

Not saying it's a bad game by any means, I'm sure it's fun, but the perspective switch game mechanic, the 'retro' graphics and the 'retro' soundtrack have all been done before by now.

I don't think the lack of challenge is an inherent problem, there are good games with little to no challenge imo, but there have to be other aspects of the game to support it and it just isn't there for Fez.

But then again, I am biased as fuck.

and I should trust you because you cannot be fired if you do a biased review ?
please...

OT: Fez is a great game. Not too far in the game, so I can't say if it's a 90, but a 85 at the very least. But I can already tell you that I think it's a much better game than Super Meat Boy.

No it just goes to show how useless random users reviews are.

I actually came in here expecting you to say "It's not a good game, it's a great game."

I'm going to whole hardily disagree after playing the trial. Let me just point this one, I was never highly anticipating this game so I was very surprised at how good this game really it. Btw not all games have to have bad guys you fight or have to avoid. It's strictly a puzzle/platformer game, which imo makes it pretty unique compared to most games this gen. I love the art style that complements the gameplay and music score. It's a very unique and original game.

So let me get this straight, I should take the opinion of one person over professional reviewers? Sorry, but I'm going to have to side with the critics on this one. You state everything like it's a fact, maybe you should fix that.