Considering:
a) it has been in development limbo for a very long time, yet I hadn't even heard of it until recently
b) the generic nature of the game that incorporates all the current fads (protagonist in some kind of suit that gives him/her gimmick powers, distant future where some inherently evil faction has taken control etc.) in FPS gaming
c) the history of the studio behind it
I wasn't expecting much. And it shouldn't have, considering how crap it turned out.
Edit: allegedly, a version of TimeShift, as it were before it was revamped for 360/PS3/PC, exists for the Xbox (1). I'd like to play that sometime.
11/06 FEAR: Perseus Mandate
Not by Monolith, so I wasn't expecting much.
This was probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I figured this would be a decent port, considering how they've had an entire studio on it, but no, in manner of most console -> PC ports the controls are terrible.
Also, Unreal Engine 3 should be renamed Bloom Engine 3 as all games based on it overuse bloom to the point where I could lit up my entire apartment using my monitor with a UE3 game playing on it alone.
11/06 Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
Haven't gotten to this yet, but the original SC was cool.
Very impressed with how well this runs. I've maxed it out at 1600x1200 and I still get 65+ fps all the time. Apart from being a technical marvel, the single-player campaign, while short, is awesome. It avoids all the bad design decisions (cutscenes as primary means of story exposition etc.) that have made so many FPS games a chore and forges an awesome experience that goes beyond most war-themed FPSes. My favorite moment by far is the short segment that takes place after the nuclear explosion and your helicopter's crashed. It puts you face to face with the grim reality that many of those who go to war never come back and aren't superheroes, like we're lead to believe in say the Medal of Honor-series.
This game makes up for the disappointing ones by being the most awesome thing I've played in years. It's been a very long time since I had so much fun in a game. Go play it now, seriously. It demands your attention.