5punk

Another thread talking briefly on games failing completely to meet their potential (Spore, Watchdogs) got me thinking - Which games for you have lived up to their hype or actually exceeded your expectations?

For me, HL2, the expansions and Portal lived up to how they were promoted.

XCOM springs immediately to mind as a game that greatly exceeded general expectations, but there wasn't a lot of hype for that.

Half-Life 2 I agree with, Portal I acknowledged as the weird little game that came in the Orange Box with Ep 1. Portal 2 pretty much lived up to the hype, and there was lots of it.

Planetside 2 was a pleasant surprise - I really didn't think they could pull off an MMOFPS, and despite looking awesome I expected it to fail to reach its potential. Maybe it still has failed to reach that potential, but it's made a bloody good fist of it.

I didn't expect to like Mass Effect, what with it being a console conversion. I was very impressed by the transition, not to mention the game. Unfortunately the sequels suffered from diminishing returns and escalating hype.

I heard so many good things about Hotline Miami, and didn't buy it for a long time because it just didn't sound like my sort of game. When I did I loved it.

Games that haven't been mentioned yet

Exceded expections - Dishonoured, Civ V, Machinarium

Didn't live up to expectations - Hellgate London, Bioshock, UT3, C&C 4, Far Cry 3, RAGE

Overlooked genius: Dishonoured, Titanfall

Wow, Hellgate London. There's a blast from the past. I remember thinking it couldn't possibly be as good as they wanted it to be, and it wasn't.

I seem to remember the whole 10 minutes of game there was being pretty good, but nothing to back it up with.

I'll add champions online, all of the promise of a next gen CoH, but shit, instead.

Hellgate London was one of the first games to have an actual 64-bit version IIRC. It was otherwise shit though, infact it was so shit that its shitness leaks into Fallout 3 when I'm going into subways I get flashbacks of its shitness and start to mildly panic.

Half Life 2 and Bioshock Inifinite both had amazing first preview videos of scenes which then completely failed to appear in the game, they were both great games I was more than happy with, but they both tried to distance themselves from their trailers, which was kind of a shame.

There's a lot not living up to the hype - certain developers who notoriously overpromise spring to mind, but basically all the next-gen consoles and almost all their titles could also be added to the list.