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In an industry that's always looking for the next big development, hype is hard to avoid. And the writers who cover the industry aren't innocent either, showering the prettiest press demos with complementary adjectives. Of course, not every game is a winner, and hindsight is 20/20, so here are the top 10 games, highly anticipated, that failed.
 10. Assassin's Creed
This is an example of a game that receives glowing critical praise, but only at first. The dazzling presentation, hyped for over a year after collecting a handful of E3 2006 awards, wowed reviewers for long enough to boost sales. Then, word got out that Assassin's Creed was a repetitive affair marred by clunky hand-to-hand combat. Let's hold out hope for the sequel.
 9. Alone in the Dark
Solely on its name, Alone in the Dark had promise, as the original game from 1992 practically birthed survival horror. The new version pushed interactivity by making nearly every object usable, and Manhattan's Central Park was a well-chosen backdrop, but sluggish controls and an overall lack of polish undermined the game's potential chills. A re-release for Playstation 3 fixed some of the Xbox 360 version's mistakes, but the sour taste was hard to wash away.
 8. Terminator Salvation
Following the trajectory of so many other movie tie-in games, Terminator Salvation was announced in 2007 and dated to launch in sync with the blockbuster film. It's no surprise, then, that the game flunked the grade. Without Christian Bale to voice John Connor, dialogue quickly took a nosedive, and repetitive third-person shooting didn't help. Someday, someone will make a Terminator game as spectacular as the movies, but this wasn't it.
 7. Red Steel
As the Wii's first shooter, Red Steel was supposed to introduce hardcore gamers to the wild frontier of motion control. Alas, the launch was rushed, and the game itself was unremarkable aside from the control scheme. The saddest part of all? Few developers have touched first-person shooting on the Wii since.
 6. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
This is one of those games that got an inordinate amount of pre-release press hype for no good reason. Sure, Kane & Lynch flashed some impressive trailers and a promising mercenary-pairs-with psychopath concept, but where's the fun? Poor AI and lackluster graphics dragged down reviews, and that whole Gerstmann scandal (after a bad review, longtime GameSpot editorial director, Jeff Gerstmann, was seemingly fired following pressure from major advertiser for the site, Eidos) killed the marketing buzz right quick.
 5. Enter the Matrix
Watching The Matrix's greatest action scenes immediately conjures images of videogaming, so the mere concept of a Matrix videogame sounded promising. No one expected Enter the Matrix to play like a half-baked idea. Slowing down time provided cheap thrills, but there's no fun in grinding through uninspiring, lifeless environments.
 4. Haze
Here's the trick to creating a Halo Killer: Make sure no one calls it a Halo Killer. Haze's promise of an advanced AI system called “Conspire” and an intriguing plot about a drugged army that fails to notice that it's serving an oppressive regime. It turns out, the plot stunk and the AI was clueless. Dull multiplayer and graphical glitches solidified Haze as one of this generation's biggest disappointments.
3. Battlecruiser 3000 A.D.
First revealed in 1992, Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. promised the world to gamers with a science fiction universe that combined strategy and combat in deep space. Five years, three publishers, and countless preview articles later, the game, practically in beta, was released against the advice of David Smart, the game's original designer. It was barely playable out of the box. A re-release, called Battlefield Millenium, erased some of the bugs, but it was too ambitious for its own good. In the endless reaches of space, players just couldn't figure out how to enjoy themselves.
 2. Daikatana
The only thing people really remember about Daikatana, it's the infamous ad that read “John Romero's about to make you his bitch.” That's because the game itself was marred by clueless friendly AI whose survival was a condition for victory. After three years of delays and hype, critics and players learned that Daikatana was just mediocre, putting Romero's rockstar status on ice.
 1. E.T. the Extra Terrestrial
Overhyped is one thing, but E.T. was such a failure that it played a starring role Atari's demise, in turn putting the entire games industry in peril. Blame it on the pits; E.T. was filled with deep wells that required some complicated joystick mumbo jumbo to escape. Beyond that, the game is a simple item hunt that bears little resemblance to the movie. Perhaps this was the start of lame movie tie-in games, too.
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