I also definitely wouldn't call it the biggest disappointment of the year (but then, I didn't even realize it came out this year until maybe a month ago). I'm not sure it's the same scenario that most fans faced, however, since I played through the entirety of the series back to back for the first time this year. No waiting months on end for two sequels. Still, I thought it was okay enough that lately I've actually spent some of my time in Dead Space 3 threads reassuring people that they actually should play the game.
The thing is, even if I hadn't had the tempered expectations of numerous reviews and banter about the game, I feel like the direction that Dead Space 2 took, combined with EA's own pre-release marketing (or anti-marketing, for fans of the series), it wasn't too difficult to see it was going to be a different game. And make no mistake - it *is* different, but different doesn't necessarily mean bad. The crafting system changed the combat in a positive way for a game that was leaning in the direction of kicking away from survival horror and going into full action-shooter mode anyway. The feeling of open-endedness in the environment was also nifty.
Of course, there were still plenty of downsides to the direction (I did use the word "okay" and not "great" to describe it). I greatly preferred the survival horror feel of the first game, and 3 ended up feeling like a convergence of gameplay with something like the Mass Effect series more than Dead Space. One specific gripe I'll make and put in spoiler tags:
One of the greatest moments of Dead Space was the tension you felt when the game introduced the "immortal" necromorph. All you could do was slow it down and run like hell, knowing it would be popping out of a future vent to torment you. It was fantastic. It was the stuff out of your worst nightmares, and I was pretty much just muttering the words "oh fuck" over and over every time I was being chased. Dead Space 2 copied this mechanic to less success. If I remember right, they just throw one (two?) of them at you fairly late in the game in a much more brief section. By the time you make it to Dead Space 3, their grand scheme to one-up that tension is to throw...yes, 3 of the creatures at you at once. I remember being very vocal to a room of just myself about how lazy that was. It's a little hard to feel tense when you're rolling your eyes.
Then there's the absurdity of the story, which the Bombcast already covered just fine. And if you think Mass Effect 3's ending sucked, rest assured that it's only one of many EA games that follow the trend.
Necromorph moon. It was so bad that I seriously didn't remember that part of the game until the Bombcast brought it up, and I only just beat the game maybe a couple of months ago.
I guess you might have had more investment in the Mass Effect universe, since it at least had two stellar games and not just one, and a lot of thought and writing went into crafting, well, a universe.
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