I came into this thread ready to complain and argue why Beyond Good and Evil is far and away the most highly praised mediocre game of the decade. Yay.
I'm in pretty much the exact same boat. I liked the game, I really did. But I liked it about as much as I liked Sly 2 (although that might not be a very fair comparison, as I know that game also has some pretty devoted followings... I'm looking at you Tommy Tallarico). It was consistently frustrating, and at times felt entirely stagnant and static. The stealth mechanic feels cheaply tacked on, yet is integrated into the game so heavily, as if the developers couldn't decide what kind of game they wanted to make. That's exactly what it is, actually: a game that is suffering from an identity crisis from start to finish, and because of that, it is never really able to take off and achieve greatness. Is it a wonderful artistic experience? Yes of course, it's right up there with Braid in the "games as art" debate. But the tedium of the combat and the shallowness of the actual gameplay DEPTH weighs down the artistic aesthetics.
This may be stritctly my opinion, but games are not movies: movies can be a completely artistic experience where the audience has absolutely NO idea what is going on, but because it's pretty to look at, it can easily be loved anyway. Games, though, have to have to HAVE TO deliver above mediocrity in the gameplay department to be truly great. They just have to: it's in the word. So as wonderfuly artistic and beautiful as the game is, I cannot look past it's "hovering" around the average marker in gameplay.
Point Lookout, then Operation Anchorage, then Broken Steel, then Mothership Zeta, then The Pitt.
Point Lookout was basically an entirely new world to explore, and the tons of little sub-plots that were scattered all over the place were legitimately interesting. Not to mention, some of the story sections of it were really unique. Like the seed part.
Operation Anchorage was just fun because I like snow, and the whole "simulation" aspect was really cool. :D
Broken Steel was good for the level cap raise and the weapons, but it was the only one that actually felt like a "Fallout 3 Expansion," if that makes sense. As in, I simply felt like I was playing more of the same of what I'd already done in the main storyline (I guess since it was the main storyline...) as opposed to something new and exciting.
Mothership Zeta was too restrictive and didn't really offer anything new at all. But I like space.
The Pitt was by far my least favorite. Part of that is probably because of how broken it was when it first came out, but also because the environment, characters, and overall story arc were just average and bland at best.
I did that over the summer at our 4th of July party. The glass was so clear.
And my nephew just did it on our trip to Disneyworld. He turned the corner and literally sprinted straight into it--I'm surprised it didn't break. He was crying for like an hour.
The only ones I have left are the latter Spec Ops achievements, mainly because I haven't been home yet to go at it with a friend yet. I'm looking forward to fighting for that 69 Star achievement.
I remember back during the SNES days, the game we would always play together around the holidays was, oddly, Famliy Feud. We would divide into actual familial teams of five and would have a riot.
Rock Band is the main party game nowadays, mainly for its accessibility. Scene-It! is a great option as well, and so is Buzz Trivia. For older audiences, doing a horde type mode in Gears 2 or Call of Duty: World at War, or Forge in ODST is fun just for the co-op elements. And then there's the classic Smash Bros. and or Mario Party series (which despite flooding the market there are some gems that are still great in large crowds).
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