9. Syndicate
The original Syndicate, an isometric RTS of sorts, was a massive hit, and the idea of turning it into a glossy FPS game was at once ambitiously exciting and also a little terrifying. The best idea in this game, adapted from the original, is the idea that your character can use technology to "hack" into the antagonist's minds and get them to either help you attack their comrades, or simply commit suicide. It had some savage potential, but the game doesn't really go far enough with it, and so after the tenth time you've done it, it just feels too ordinary and banal, requiring the user to input too many commands to perform too little actions. Aside from this gimmick, it's really business as usual; you shoot your way through room after room, die a lot, go back to some annoyingly distant checkpoints, rinse and repeat. There's also some bullet time - because every FPS needs it now - further proving that the game just wants to pride itself on stealing from better games that have preceded it. Even the casting of Brian Cox in a pivotal role can't really give this one any more credibility; it's a shooter that looks great, has a good enough idea, but can't implement it well enough nor come up with enough originality in other areas to succeed.