Spec Ops: The Line is a game that both suffers and benefits greatly from its title. On one hand, the name “SPEC OPS: THE LINE” is generic to the point of being the product of a military combat Mad Libs, fitting in nicely between such titles as “HARDENED SOLDIER: PAID IN BLOOD” and “WAR PAWNS 3: DOUBLE BARRELED IN SUDAN.” The cover features bold lettering, unhappy dudes toting unhappy guns, and an explosion, all tinted in the most vivid shade of the color spectrum; brown.

You can spend three seconds looking at the box and think you know exactly what you're getting into. Middle East. Helicopter crash. Militants. Shooty-shooty-bang-die. Done.

Of course, you'd be wrong.

Don't misunderstand me, all those things are indeed present in the game, but I'm of the belief that the true brilliance of this game, and its title, is that it wants to appear like all other bland military shooters, and it wants you to play it like all other bland military shooters, because the game's message and play-style is fashioned out of that expectation of you. The best way to experience Spec Ops is to go in figuratively blind. Trust me on this. Stop reading this review, stop reading any Spec Ops reviews, and just play it. Seriously, go away. Simply put, the more you know about the story, the message, and what the game is truly up to...the less effective it is.

That said, a video game review isn't worth much without the author injecting as many off-topic blog-tier musings as possible (hello, Polygon.com) so I'm going to continue writing and hope for the best.

I truly believe that Spec Ops is of a unique persuasion in that the game dislikes the player. Spec Ops gives the player choices, but first concludes that if the player begins to actually play the game, then at some basic level, the character that we—the players, control has disobeyed orders and lost. The more we play, the harder our character loses. Choices rarely appear to be actual choices, and are instead framed as typical video game 'do or die' situations; do this action, or the game ends. Shoot these people, or you die. Press this button, or get overrun. Press forward, or don't complete the level.

Of course, all video games could be boiled down to this idea, really. Mario should jump on the Goomba and get to the end of the level. If you decide to have Mario just run into the little guy and die on World 1-1...you have (in a way) completed the game. You finished the story of Mario.

This isn't how we approach video games, though. It's not how we approach media in general. Yet, Spec Ops toys with this idea and asks to player to reflect why they pressed on from level to level. Why they continued to shoot. Why they continued to kill. We the players might respond with “That's just what I was supposed to do,” which gives a much clearer perspective into why games work like they do these days. Why destruction is seemingly the only action that most games can trust players with. Why spectacle is so much more developed than emotion. Why this game, out of all games, came packaged with an achingly dull progression-unlock multiplayer component.

I recommend this game, Steam. Thanks for acting like you care, bud.

The 30-second pitch for Bioshock Infinite would have made me, a well-established and politically-minded executive, rouse from my normal 10:30am weekday nap and sign any number of blank checks to whoever cooked up this idea. Indulge me, if you please.

“Our followup to Bioshock will take place not below the swells of the mid-century sea, but above the clouds of industrial/spheres-of-influence era America. Set against the backdrop of a sky-bound cityscape, players will navigate a world formed by isolationist, fundamentalist ideologies, where the balance between ultra-rich and despondently poor, the corrupt and the desperate, God's chosen and God's untouchables, is about to be thrown into upheaval. The player, along with their mysterious and supernaturally-powerful CPU partner, must navigate not only the bobbing, sun-drenched land-above-land of Americana placed before them, but witness the human cost of prosperity, and participate in the dramatic renvisioning of a city set apart from, yet steeped in, the complex beast that is American idealism.”

I mean, fine, it's not “Soap, the terrorists have already won unless you press 'F' to pay respects,” but to someone who is inclined towards a more story-driven game (and who loved the 'Shocks before it) Infinite sounds like a natural and appropriately “heady” progression for the series.

Sadly, while the art design is more than up to the challenge set up by this 'pitch,' the rest of the game is, well, a milk-toast mishmash of Bioshock 1's ideas and story twists, and an alarmingly stripped-down game world from what has come before from this studio.

First, this game is beautiful. I loved Bioshock's art direction, and this, with the focus on beaux-arts architecture and turn-of-the-century design, is another gorgeous game world to get lost in. Not only that, but the player is allowed to simply wander about in certain areas in the game, playing carnival games, watching beach-side dancing, or fireworks above the skyline. It's beautiful, and quiet moments like these make the game feel more like an experience than the objective-laced steamroller that it actually is.

With that out of the way, it's difficult to express how disappointed in this game I was. Bioshock Infinite marks the first game in memory where I was genuinely exhausted with dispatching enemies. When the story is interesting, the characters are...serviceable, and the game world is gorgeous, I don't want to dispatch a standard ten enemies in each room, I want to progress the story. Infinite seems to realize this too, which is the only explanation of why the gun-play is so dull, repetitive, and...obligatory-feeling. The game utterly fails to make a legitimate case for you, the hero of our story, indiscriminately mauling untold legions of police officers and aging veteran soldiers. Sure, there are some robots, insane fanatics, or...or...or ghosts (19th-century spiritualism my eye, Ken Levine—a poorly padded-out scavenger hunt is what it is, you can call it that) that make a modicum of sense for their bloodlust and your wildly vicious actions, but it's impossible to shake the feeling that the creators of this game put an emphasis on violence not because it made sense within the world and the story they stitched together, but because horrific acts of close-up, slow-mo, unblinking savagery are simply what you're supposed to do in video games. Nevermind justification, nevermind story/character integrity, nevermind that the frequency and intricacy of the violence borders on farcical, it looks cool and it's integral because something-something-industry-standards, and our game would only be two hours long without it.

Don't get me wrong, Bioshock 1 & 2 were both super violent, but those games at least gave an effort to justify your actions. Splicers are insane, they're running beast-mode, and they've lost their humanity. Here in Bioshock Infinite? I dunno man, but isn't it badass how you can throw a baseball up in the air and turn a police officer's face into meatloaf with his buddy's weapon in one smooth cutscene? Isn't it badass that you can bound across the map, grip some working stiff's gut in your skyhook, grind his pancreas up, and throw him, like, ten yards while all his buddies just watch? Isn't it badass? Why haven't you bought the Clash-in-the-Clouds DLC yet?

The complex themes that are put forward in the first few scenes of this game are distilled down to a roller-coaster ride that basically says, “racism sure was a historical thing that was bad, huh?” Isolationism, exceptionalism, religious leadership and extremism, class, racial, and social unrest, military deification--every single interesting theme in this game is boiled down to an 8th-grade social studies textbook blurb that offends no one, challenges nothing, and brings nothing to the table except those stupid skyhook melee kills.

Nevermind that the (now expected) 'twist' in 'Shock games is here in full, and completely dumps everything that the game wanted to say in exchange for a Christopher Nolan-worthy complexity that derails anything that the first eight hours of this game built up to.

Anyway, this review makes it sound like I hate Bioshock Infinite.

I dislike Bioshock Infinite the same way I dislike a book by a talented and proven author that only amounts to an 'OK' weekend read. It's not pulp, to be sure, but the disappointment that stems from what should have been a 'book-of-the-decade' stings a lot more than some shlocky Star Wars novelization that I had no real hope for anyway. You can see the possibilities, what the media wants you to feel, but its goals are much higher than its reach, and that's less 'hate,' and more 'disappointment.' Bioshock Infinite had a long development time, some of the best brains behind it, huge budget, proven track-record, fantastic world...and it's 'blah.' That's the bit I hate.

Do I recommend this game, Steam? Honestly, with three other great 'Shocks on Steam, this one should be your last pick. In that sense, no. No, Steam. I don't recommend this game. Thanks for asking.