The idea of "hot-Chromebooking" - is terrible. We briefly attempted a similar thing at a place I worked (not with Chrome) and the results were as you expected. Most people don't take care of laptops they own, much less a device they are loaned for a day. Even though we had a fairly responsible crew, we quickly discovered that a shared laptop - a random device pulled off a rack - is going to be treated terribly. And I'm not just thinking of damage - cracked screens, broken keyboards, busted hinges - but just sanitary issues: dirty keycaps and smudged screens that made me not even want to touch the things. There is more to using computers than just the data and applications.

We quickly went back to assigned devices; not only did we see far less turnover of devices but, the users were happier. Plus, if a laptop did get damaged, we could far more easily figure out who was to blame.

Whether or not video games belong in the Olympics, I hope the major video game companies steer clear of this. From everything I have read, the IOC is a corrupt and vile organization that makes Electronic Arts look charitable. I don't want my hobby associated with them for any reason.

Sex is bad, so get it off Steam but games where you can bloodily rip people apart? Valve has no problem with that.

I have absolutely no interest in visual novels - pornographic or otherwise - but this move seems prudish and unfair. And I bet games like Grand Theft Auto - which also push the boundaries with regard to sex - won't get this sort of attention. Steam already age-gates certain games; just do the same with this sex-themed visual novels.

Gotta agree.

It's not a great game. I am not saying that. It struggles even to be a good game. It is a bit repetitive. It has cartoonishly evil villains. The motorcycle is a bust. The enemies respawn to quickly. But the gun-play is solid, the levels are fun to mess around in, the graphics were surprisingly appealing and you get a good amount of content. It is undeniably flawed but not without merit.

It's not a game for which you would pay full price, but $5.99? Yeah, that's about right. Compare it to other games at that price - the bottom-feeding independently-published asset-flips and Homefront Revolution is a great bargain. Go into the game with that understanding - don't expect too much - and you'll have a fine time without breaking the bank.

So what does $250,000 actually buy you in game? I've heard prices are amazingly inflated in GTA-O

In other words, they abandon everything that made the Metro series feel unique and are chasing after the generic-shooter crowd in hopes of getting a bigger audience. Sacrifice your guaranteed audience in the vain hope of competing with the huge triple-A games like Call of Duty and the rest.

Yeah, good luck with that. I loved the Metro games but it was never the shooter aspects of the franchise that I enjoyed.

God, they're even adding crafting.

Welp, this game just dropped off my "must buy/first-day purchase" list. Short of it getting amazing reviews I may not even buy it at all.

The first space trucker simulator? What, no love for "Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine"?

Developers these days, no appreciation of the classics!

Damn, I was sort of hoping this was a sequel or remake of Codename: Outbreak, a 2001 game by GSC (of STALKER fame). Although rough around the edges, I nonetheless still quite enjoyed that game; it was a nice mix of tactical- and action shooter. It had - for its time - fairly large levels, you had a teammate who was surprisingly useful and the stealth aspects were great. Its eighth(?) level also formed a significant chunk of the the first map in STALKER. I'd love to see a modern remake of that.

This, however, is not the game I was hoping for. This is just another of those games that makes me dread "indie" titles. Lousy animation, an awful interface, unexciting gameplay and a complete lack of imagination (gee, zombies in the city, how /original/). Thank you for alerting me to this travesty so I know not to buy it.

Anything to prevent your having to curate your storefront yourself, eh Valve?

I never got into that whole "curator" thing myself anyway; never saw the appeal. So whether the change is a positive one or not, it's not going to affect me.

What is this "disc" thing the developer keeps talking about? Apparently it is necessary to play a game and can be traded. Is it some sort of DLC? How much hard-drive space does it take?

Single-player FPS games aren't going anywhere. If anything, it is only single-player FPS games developed by greedy "triple-A" studios that might be going away (and arguably, good riddance) but there are a bunch of independent studios more than willing to take up the slack. And with development tools becoming so powerful, I'm not sure I'll really notice the lack of 1000-person sized teams and $100 million budgets that are de rigueur for AAA games; independently-published titles good enough already.

Ah, the good ol' On-the-House program; the only reason I ever open up the Origin client anymore. I wonder how many PC sales their Origin-exclusivity has cost EA?

I loved HR, but I haven't pulled the trigger on MD yet. Is it worth $15.00?

On the other hand... even had I purchased it at $15, I would still be hard pressed to say I got value for my dollar

Don't get me wrong; the game isn't terrible. It's graphics are simply gorgeous, and the world is lavishly detailed. The minute-by-minute gameplay isn't bad either; it's basically the same as DX:HR with a few fairly inconsequential changes. But as I player I felt short-changed by the story and setting; it was sub-par to what we saw in earlier titles. It had its moments, but too much of this game - including its main plot - felt like busy-work and the drudgery of a common flatfoot. Compare this to the world-changing actions with which the earlier games engaged you, and DX:MD feels far inferior.

I suppose it depends on what you play the Deus Ex series for; if it's mostly for the gameplay, you'll probably be more than satisfied, if a bit upset that the game ends so early. On the other hand, if the world-building and exploration are more important to you, even $15 may seem excessive.

I can't get too excited about this - beyond the vague nostalgia that 2000s games inspire in me - because I found the original games themselves rather forgettable. They were okay shooters, I think, but I'd be hard pressed to remember if they did anything special, either in terms of graphics, story or gameplay. They were solid "B" titles; not the sort of game I ever would have expected to get a sequel years later.

But while my memories of the game are fuzzy, I do well remember the Aquamark 3 benchmark. Intended, I think, both to advertise the game and let players see if their computers could handle the graphics, it was a worthy competitor to the likes of 3DMark. It remained on my computers for the longest time, although I've had issues getting it to run on more modern hardware/operating systems. I'd rather they release an update to the benchmark than the game, in all honesty.

The Tropico games are fun, but they are killing it with these yearly releases. There's just not enough difference between them and I'm quickly burning out on the franchise. They need to let it lie fallow for a few years and work on something else before they Ubisoft their brand to death.

First Brink, now Shadow Warrior.

I need to stop buying games if they're just gonna keep giving them away for free after a few years. I'd save a bundle.

Another vote for SumatraPDF. It's best feature is how fast it loads, a result of how lightweight it is. It is light on capabilities - it's basically /just/ a PDF reader, whereas FoxIt (and Acrobat and other similar apps) often include a number of editing features as well. It also lacks the ability to handle forms or scripting or any multimedia more complicated than basic text and pictures. An example of how limited it is: the addition of opening multiple PDFs in different tabs was a major addition of a recent update. On the other hand, it does open .CBR and .CBZ files.

If you want something a bit more feature-rich, the free PDF-XChange Editor is pretty good. It's roughly feature-equivalent to Acrobat Reader, although I find its OCR slightly better. But in those rare instances SumatraPDF isn't up to the task, PDF-XChange picks up the slack.

EA basically went invisible to me once they pulled their games from Steam and distributed via Origin-only. It's not that I have anything against Origin - it's not quite as functional as Steam but it's not really much worse than Valve's offering either - but I just don't have the time or inclination to monitor another digital storefront. If I'm looking for new games, I go to Steam and if the one I was looking for isn't available, well there are a host of other titles that will catch my interest instead.

So it doesn't matter if EA streams all their games available via a Netflix-like subscription, I'm still not going to be playing them because - as far as I am concerned - they've walled themselves into a tiny corner of the Internet. And I can't believe I'm the only one who feels this way.

Oooh, some skins, hurrah.

The game is fun, but it is severely lacking in content. It needs more maps, more game-modes, the promised single-player, even a tutorial. It's a one-trick pony and while it does that trick very well, right now it doesn't offer the longevity of gameplay that you would expect from a game priced as expensively as this one is. Apparently the devs are working on getting us that content, but until it comes I can't really get that excited about some new skins. While a nice gesture, it's not going to make me come back to the game or even recommend it until there is more of a game to play.

For what it's worth, the original Left4Dead got a similar updated.

Wow! With Windows 10 Creator Update, "you can watch a video in a small window while working in the rest of the screen." Such innovation!