Before we cover the highlights of 2007 in our next feature, it's only fair that we dedicate a feature to spotlighting the letdowns, of which there was no shortage. What follows are the personal opinions of the Game Almighty staff and in no way reflect an overall opinion, so take everything with a grain of salt and no one will get hurt. Disagree with our opinions? Let us know in the comments section and while you're at it, share your own gaming letdowns!

Chris Jensen

Letdown: Mass Effect

Why: I was really hoping Bioware would deliver on their heritage and elevate the RPG to new heights, free from the burdens of a Star Wars license. Turns out, they need Star Wars more than ever. Mass Effect comes across as a sterile gaming experience with too much reliance on repetitive tasks that take place on bland planets with cookie-cutter levels. The entire universe of Mass Effect just feels terribly empty, especially when compared to Knights of the Old Republic that had a lived-in feel. With Star Wars you have a universe that is fully realized, from plant-life to basic aesthetics, but Mass Effect comes across as generic and uninteresting science-fiction that takes no risks and fails to deliver any memorable moments. Bioware does their best work when translating the worlds of of others, like Dungeons & Dragons with Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, or Star Wars with Knights of the Old Republic. When left to their own devices, we end up with the anemic Jade Empire and now, the hollow Mass Effect.

Letdown: PC Gaming

Why: This was to be the year that PC gaming re-established a foothold in the face of console gaming, heralding such hyped titles as Tabula Rasa, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, Empire Earth III and Hellgate: London. Add to this Microsoft pushing Games for Windows, DirectX 10 and Vista, each of which failed, and you have recipe for disaster. Ultimately, PC gaming feels like it’s on life-support, just waiting for someone to pull the plug and put it out of its misery. Besides the Orange Box, not a single PC game justified its existence or the hassle it takes to get any of the games to run properly, not to mention the various copy-protection routines that punish legitimate players while pirates simply use a cracked .EXE. At this point, the MMO is the only genre allowing the PC to continue breathing and it won't last forever.

Letdown: The PS3 In General

Why: Sony fanboys love pointing out that the Xbox 360 had similar problems in its first year, but fail to disclose that a successful company learns from the mistakes of its competitors. While the Xbox 360 was blazing new trails with downloadable content, achievements and a great network infrastructure, albeit with some speedbumps along the way, Sony appears to have never once taken note. Here we are a year later with little signs of improvement. The PlayStation Network remains a poorly designed environment, not a single game has justified the existence of the PS3 and every week seems to start with a new SKU announcement. It's clear the PS3 was rushed to market without proper focus on how to win, if for no other reason than Sony believed the PlayStation logo was all they needed.

Matt Morrison

Letdown: Assassin’s Creed

Why: Ok, sure it looks awesome… but why is it so unfinished? The world is populated by tons of neat NPCs that react to your presence, has three colossal cities and a massive overworld. Where are the side quests, or for that matter, basic variation in the main quest? The game was so hugely hyped, but we even saw things in previews that didn’t make it into an already-incomplete game. Take the crossbow spotted in a preview video, for example. Altair apparently left that at home, along with 25 hours of lost potential gameplay.

Letdown: Money!

Why: What possessed video game publishers to release no less than seven heavily hyped titles in the space of only two weeks? That’s a major blow to the wallets of gamers, and the parents of younger gamers, everywhere. Gamers are forced with deciding to either drop hundreds and hundreds of dollars on the titles they want, to wait many months until the prices fall, or cull the herd, and be faced with decisions such as ‘Mario Galaxy, or Mass Effect?’ That’s not a decision gamers want to have to make! We’re greedy folk, us gamers – we want to experience everything.