2. DayZ
In any other year DayZ would probably have easily taken the top spot, but in 2012 narrowly comes second. It features permadeath; has only difficulty level; doesn't feature a tutorial; and, for obvious reasons, requires the player to be permanently connected to the internet. As a modern game it shouldn't work, but it does. Far from being a hindrance to its success its actually these unorthodox features which have made DayZ popular. As a modern gamer who remembers the days before there was a checkpoint every five minutes and when saving wasn't possible, its refreshing to play a game where dying actually means something, which doesn't force you to sit through a tutorial or limited your abilities for the first quarter of the game - I'm looking at you Assassins Creed. One of the reasons DayZ doesn't quite snatch the accolade of "Greatest Downloadable Game of 2012" is because it isn't technically a game (at least not yet). DayZ is merely a free mod for ArmA II, a military tactical shooter released in 2010 (which I am aware is available in stores and came out in 2009, but is a very different experience to DayZ ).