6. Raul Menendez - Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Until this point, the Call of Duty series has been criticised for having unforgettable, cartoonish villains who have predictable, laughably clichéd motives, and as a result, they all sort of tend to blur into one. That is, however, until Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 abounded and surprised us all, serving up the most terrifying, entertaining and sympathetic villain of the entire series in Raul Menendez. Menendez has had a hard life, given that after an Earthquake which claimed most of his family, he and his sister hid in a warehouse that was unceremoniously burned down by its owner, causing his sister to be horribly disfigured. Oh, and then the U.S. assassinated his father, fostering the man's hatred for the U.S., such that over the years leading up to the game's future tense, Menendez has been building a terrorist group with which he unleashes the full force of his rage at the game's climax. Given how badly his family have been treated, we somewhat - we said
somewhat - sympathise with his actions at game's end, taking control of the U.S.'s drone array and essentially turning them on the city of Los Angeles, claiming countless lives and ruining the city's infrastructure. His motivations are better thought-out than most similar video game villains, actually making us buy into the how and why, such that the fact we're allowed to choose whether he lives or dies at the end actually makes us feel something. Hopefully the canon ending will be that he lives, and we can hope to see him again in another game.