Spec Ops is a hard game to take in, perhaps even the most brutal entry on this list. In the beginning, it looks as if it's going to be just another mediocre shooter - standard cover-based pop and kill stuff. - and then when you land your first kill, it feels almost too easy. A bullet to the chest kicks your adversaries down easily. A couple of shootouts later, you're fighting someone who you shouldn't be fighting at all, and things start going the wrong way, and something feels very, very weird. Aside from dealing with obvious physical trauma in form of injuries and weariness, the spec op team has to deal with their leader's (your) mental issues. As his state of mind decays, the operation gets more and more reckless, the takedowns get bloodier and deaths become a normal thing in a game that, in the end, feels like the best anti-war propaganda that gaming can offer. Sure, there are some particularly barbaric moments, but Spec Ops is not about physical violence, so much as the effect the war on soldiers. The characters aren't huge muscular statues but humans, and they work things out as humans do - by messing it up even more. It's really a message that there is a hidden potential in shooters. Spec Ops: The Line is probably the deepest and most intelligent third person shooter you can currently find on the market. Its message doesn't leave you easily. Therefore, it's worth more than any CoD or Battlefield.
