10 Video Games With The Biggest Downgrade From Reveal To Launch

Aliens: Colonial Marines was, arguably, the first mis-step in the long, drawn-out downfall of Gearbox Software. The game looked incredibly scary and atmospheric in trailers, but upon release it was a buggy mess that turned out more funny than it was scary.

To be fair to Gearbox, development on Colonial Marines was conducted by several different studios between 2007 and its 2013 release, so blame cannot solely fall on the shoulders of Randy Pitchford and co. That said, Gearbox is to blame for the misleading reveal trailers that resulted in lawsuits for false advertising.

As is seemingly customary with game downgrades, the lighting was a major factor in Colonial Marines. The initial trailer showed a gorgeous space station with shadows that added to the atmosphere and tension. It showed action scenes with far more emphatic effects and cinematic gameplay than those of the actual release.

There are dozens of examples of poor lighting, awful AI, missing features, untextured environments, and laughable character models. The funniest thing about Colonial Marines however is that all of the broken AI was down to one spelling error in the code. That wouldn't have saved the game or made up for the misleading graphics, but it sure makes for one great anecdote.