watch this short animated film if you haven't already

http://www.codehunters.tv/swfs/main.htm 

you'll see why... 

Edit: should be noted this came out in 2007 BEFORE borderlands

Borderlands - The Movie.

borderlands now seems a lot less original 

Seems weird that Gearbox kept this so quiet when it was obviously their inspiration for the art design. God knows how many times we've all heard the story about their designers changing it in secret and going up to Randy Pitchford with this crazy new art design. Yet they always left this out of the story. 
 
The short and the game both look amazing and there's nothing wrong with borrowing ideas for your design, but at least give credit where it's due rather than waiting to be caught out and just saying "oh yea... acknowledge these guys!".
 
http://kotaku.com/5444016/separated-at-birth-borderlands-and-codehunters for those who missed it.

this was evident long ago but whatever. i would much rather they copied the look and colors of codehunters completely..or even licenced and exchanged some shader info with the codehunters people.  
 
I dont like his jab at Valve with TF2 however, since Valve designers talked about the art style they lifted and honored the originator  constantly.