Bioshock was masterful in its presentation of a marvelous, contained game world. It excelled in atmosphere, and the characters were quite great. But I will never understand where critics and gamers alike could justify the nearly unanimous praise of the game as a whole, as well as of its every part. Supposedly professional game critics, people who you'd imagine would have good bearings on events in the industry, hailed it as groundbreaking, and nearly flawless. This despite the character/skill growth component and the sense of real choice really being a step back from previous games from the same mold. The actual shooting felt similarly ancient, made interesting strictly based on the odd interesting gun and ability, and a decent gallery of enemies.
Generally, it felt like the game could have probably been cut down by about 60%; multiple instances of the same type of scene (lights go out, enemies attack, that worked the first time) really made it this quite clear.
Very good game though, and I'd recommend it for atmosphere. But the critical and gamer reception made me wonder when these people really started playing games.
edit: The hell, Uncharted vs Bioshock? What in the hell do these games have in common? I guess the similarity is that they are both very good at what they do, only what they do is nowhere near as groundbreaking as some would claim.
