10. Gears of War - Maria Santiago
Throughout of the course of the war between really buff C.O.G. soldiers and the Locust in the Gears of War games is filled with death - human soldiers and civilians die regularly, and you of course as the player, inflict hundreds of Locust casualties over the course of a game. Although one would argue that death is a given in any shooter game... Gears of War is chock-full of it. However, let us ignore the two warring factions to focus on Maria. The primary protagonist of the game is Marcus Fenix, and his closest sidekick is the charismatic, loyal Dominic Santiago, a childhood friend of Fenix. The aforementioned Maria is his wife, whom he'd known since his teenage years long before the horrors of Emergence Day and the subsequent chaos that occurred afterwards. If anything, Maria was a loving, faithful, beautiful beacon of happiness in Dom's life. And... seeing as how she's on this list, she's obviously dead. On Emergence Day (the day the hostile, subterranean Locust hordes burst above ground and began slaughtering humans), Maria's parents and children were killed, thus sending her spiraling into depression. She became neurotic, obsessive, and although still a loving partner to Dom, she slowly began slipping into insanity. Now, a few years into the war, Dom, logically, becomes curious as to the location and well-being of his wife. This results in him finding that his wife has been lobotomized, and the emaciated, insane woman racked with multiple illnesses due to poor living conditions, is all that remains of what was once a happy, optimistic, charming wife. Faced with no other option, Dom euthanizes his wife with a pistol, apologizing profusely for not seeking her out sooner. In a game rife with death and destruction, this was just another notch on the list of bodycounts, but this poor woman was put through hell - first the witness of her family's death, then the witness of the destruction of her home, before finally, living a miserable existence after being put to slave labor. Unfortunately though, I'm just getting started.