Vanquish

Vanquish was developed by Platinum Games, the same developers taking on the already-derided Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and this is what many fear Revengeance will be like, though I think Revengeance will be fun in its own right. It's not MGS, but it looks fun. Anyway, Vanquish is shooty where Revengeance looks swordy and you zip around fighting all manner of robots and cyborgs with a variety of weapons. It's very fast-paced and has a good cover and slo-mo system as well. Plus, the voice actor of the main character sounds like the grizzled Charlie Sheen we all got to see melt down last year.

Bulletstorm

Bulletstorm was heavily hyped by co-developer Epic Games (you got first access to the Gears 3 beta if you pre-ordered Bulletstorm), which is why it perhaps didn't live up to the hype. It aimed to be a different FPS in that it pushed a "skillshot" system that awarded you for more creative kills. Yes, you could run through and simply shoot everyone COD-style, but there are some really creative weapons and you have an energy leash with which you can manipulate your foes and the environment for greater skillshot points (which you can use to buy upgrades and the like). It also has an online co-op mode in which four players had to cooperate on each wave of enemies to earn enough skillshot points to advance to the next wave.

Brutal Legend

The voice of Jack Black in a world populated by every heavy metal meme ever. What's not to love? Well, Brutal Legend, to put it bluntly, had a very narrow focus. It appealed only to a very small group of people. People that grew up on metal in the 80s like me got it, but everyone else was pretty much wondering what the hell was going on in this game. Well, maybe younger folks got the Hot Topic monsters that popped up towards the end. Brutal Legend is all third-person action that focuses on attacking sonically with your guitar and chopping up stuff with your axe. Plus, you can cruise around the open world in your weaponized hot rod listening to heavy metal - and you can shuffle through the songs while you play, to boot. Unfortunately, someone decided to shoehorn some RTS battles into the game, which was a low point, and the multiplayer was entirely RTS.

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