15 Video Games You Wrongly Assume Are Terrible
8. Spec Ops: The Line
The Game: Yager Development's 2012 military third-person shooter about the psychological toils of war.
Why You Assume It's Terrible: Spec Ops was regrettably marked as a generic, down-the-line shooter with little more to offer beyond that familiarity. As a result, gamers were largely turned off by it and the game was a commercial flop, causing most to write it off and never give it a second thought.
Why You're Wrong: Spec Ops may look like your standard, flag-waving military shooter, but it's actually a surprisingly intelligent, thoughtful game about the nature of war and also of modern game design. Without giving anything away, the game has a few narrative sleights of hand ready to ensure you're left with plenty to think about.
It also features one of the most disturbing and unforgettable scenes in gaming history, where the player launches a white phosphorus attack that accidentally decimates dozens of innocents.
What could've been a fairly familiar shooter is instead reinvented as one of the most cerebral and pleasantly surprising war games ever made. Call of Duty could take a few pointers from here.