Best of 2010

I'm only going to put in a few games, not 10, because there's enough significant games I haven't played to make a longer list misleading. I'll play Red Dead, Castlevania, NFS: Hot Pursuit and Vanquish next year sometime. I'll never play Halo or Fable or Alan Wake because I don't have an Xbox. I probably won't play Starcraft 2 because I don't enjoy RTS games very much.
 
Least favourite games of the year sublist:
Lost Planet 2: Only game I did not finish. Frustrating, badly designed, clumsy and slow.
Final Fantasy 13: Good combat system and main characters, but poor story, empty world, annoying melodrama and a lack of freedom to explore that made it all seem tiresome.
Bad Company 2: Judging only on single player, I found this frustrating and very buggy and the storyline is a predictable weak photocopy of apparantly every other FPS game at the moment. Multiplayer is probably better.

List items

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  1. Bayonetta

  Because it knows that games are not tied to reality and are free to do anything they like, and chooses to express that in a fresh, exciting way that hugely rewards the player's skills.

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  2. Mass Effect 2

  Because it integrates character, gameplay and narrative in the tightest way yet achieved and because it is based in an incredibly realised and detailed galaxy full of interesting alien races.

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  3. Split/Second

  Because it looks stunning, was an imaginative departure for racing games, had a great soundtrack and because it reliably produced edge-of-the-seat excitement in practically every race.

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  4. Heavy Rain

  Because it successfully included elements of everyday life into videogames in ways that no other game has even attempted, it looks incredible and it at least suggests that in future players will get more options for interaction in gameworlds than shooting at things or pressing a single context sensitive action button.

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  5. Sid Meier's Civilization V

  Because it evolves the UI and design of the game and the world while retaining most of what makes the series great. When some minor issues are fixed in patches or expansions it'll be the best version of Civ.