"And finally "new" areas that use exactly the same terrain, textures, buildings whatever. Pretty much a copy of a previous area/level. Also a bad way to extend campaigns" Nonsesne this was due to the level of graphics back then and wat developers could have done !

and as i can recall a shooters had no back tracking in it yet it is longer than the shooters  we get now! dead space has done this and is an excellent game (lets forget part3 for this convo) the only game that has change this is resident evil and u can c that with this how the game has bomb besides it is no longer survial horror but action besides these games and rpjs there is no "bad game design u speak of" cause  as i c it works!

and wat quality u speak of in cod games of this time before u blink its over no deep story nothing makes sense everything rushed and bam! go play multiplayer!

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/16249/vlad321/

You forgot to mention Blizzard fucking up bnet.  By getting rid of the chat channels and ability to host your own game (not sure because it has been ages since loggin onto bnet).  Blizzard did a lot more harm than good with SC2.  I played the SC2 beta and was highly unimpressed. 

really? since beta lol. your missing out. since the release of sc2WOL u could always make a chat channel and create ur own games. anything else?

Civ5 is complete enough on its own, without the DLC, though. The patches have helped it a lot. Civ4 had two expansions, so Civ5's upcoming expansion is expected. The games are also reasonably priced ($50 original, $30 expos), and still allow mods and such, which are easy to find because they're linked right in the game's menu. Plenty of free content, right there.

I really don't think Civ5 is among the games worth complaining about - their worst offense is the price of extra Civs via DLC, but since the core games themselves are cheap enough, I find them worth getting once they hit a 75% sale. I mean, shit, all of the DLC's, the expansion and Civ5 itself is on sale for $13.50 on GMG right now .

Certain console games, recent Blizzard games and EA are a whole different story.

@anything else? Yea Blizzard isn't that good anymore just like Westwood when EA bought them out. Activision will turn Blizzard into shit.  Want further evidence?  Most Diablo fans reaction to Diablo 3.

your are wrong. see every blizzard game none of them even have the activision logo and in every single tournament and interview activision has never been mentioned.they are seperate entities and blizz plublishes their own games. i asked if there was anything else with the game u might not like because im trying to get u to give it another chance because hots really is amazing. also, the constant fan support disagree with you.

Yep. Everyone assumes that that if DLC is ready on day one that it must have been taken out of the game. Whets more likely is that the DLC team worked on the side while the main team worked with the manufacture deadline. The game goes gold and the DLC team continues work on the planned DLC. I really don't see what the problem is. Even "on disc" DLC isn't really on disc. There can be code that is ready for planned DLC, but that doesn't mean it was taken out of the game to sell separately. Too many people are suspicious of game devs and publishers. Nobody complains that DVDs have deleted scenes, but those really were taken out of the movie and sold on the DVD after everyone already bought tickets to see the movie in theaters. Why are video game companies held to a different ethical standard than other companies?

@bolded #1

Exactly ! That's the reason why no one is doing it nowadays. Filling the game with the same things over and over again, the reason barely matters. But the fact that developers don't do it anymore is proof enough that it was a cheap method of extending the time back in the days. Not doing this is a step forward, thus games being shorter because of that is an automatic increase in quality.


@bolded #2 You couldn't be more wrong.

Doom 1/2, Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D, Medal of Honor Allied Assault, Call of Duty 1.
All had backtracking, some even lots of it. CoD1 being the most recent example. A few levels where you go in, get something you need and then go all the way back and suddenly new enemies arrive until you reach the beginning of the level again.

In Doom/Wolfenstein/Duke Nukem (among others) you go through the levels, see locked doors, go through this aisle and that aisle to grab the key(card) and walk all the way back to the previous locked door. And that in pretty much every level.

While Dead Space is somewhat guilty of this too, the level design is smart enough to let you go to your desired place on more than one way. So if you backtrack you do it because you want to and only rarely bceause you're forced to.


@bolded #3

It's true the story has barely started and the game is over. But let me ask you, was it better before ?
All the shooters I mentioned before. Did they have "story" ? Most of them are just WW2 shooters that go from one place to another or games where you're here without reason and you just have to get out by killing those monsters/aliens.
add Marathon, Unreal, Quake 2 etc. to that list if you want.

Now if you play Modern Warfare 1-3 or Black Ops 1-2 you will notice that the story is split between them. They need to be played in a row to truly experience the story.

Want an example of bad DLC? Try Worms 2 Armageddon on PSN. It doesn't even include a decent amount of weapons in Worms Armageddon on N64 and has at least 3-4 different types of DLC. The only thing that makes the PSN version better than the N64 version is online play and that is messed up considering they don't count a discount as a loss (people love to discount right before losing).

im not sticking up for the way dlc is handled by every publisher. There needs to be improvement.