Yeah, I agree with all the Crackdown praise. People kept asking me on Xbox Live if I had bought it for the Halo 3 beta, and I kept having to respond that I bought it because it is a fantastic game. It's probably my favourite sandbox game, simply for the fact that it removes all pretensions at story - and consequently removes all artificial gating. You want to try to go kill Wang the instant you start the game? There's absolutely nothing stopping you. The city design is also so good. Orb hunting wouldn't be fun at all (look at how tedious and boring the superficially similar flag collecting is in Assassin's Creed) if every building wasn't placed in just the right way to make it an entertaining puzzle to quickly traverse the environment.

Another really underrated gem is Resonance of Fate. It looks like yet another JRPG, but I think there's something really special about the unique mechanics it has and the wonderful way they all complement each other. The battle system is complex but very entertaining once you understand it, requiring you to whittle down enemy hp with scratch damage from rapid-fire weapons and then lock it in with damage from pistols. The way the world map works is also very unique. You can't traverse it until you acquire puzzle-like sets of hexes, which you then place down on the map in order to access new areas. Different coloured hexes provide different effects, so you end up trying to adjust the world to your greatest advantage (for instance, by maximizing item drop rates or ensuring certain enemy types appear). The worst part about the game is the tutorial. It's not particularly great at explaining the way the game works, or even what the tutorial missions expect you to do. I had to look up a FAQ to figure out how to complete one of the tutorials! But if you can look past that and dedicate the time to learning the game, it's very rewarding. The story isn't amazing, coming off more as a collection of vignettes rather than a coherent plot, but the excllent English voice acting (by Nolan North and a bunch of Disney alumni) makes the interactions between the characters entertaining despite not really ever coalescing into a proper narrative.

As for overrated games, Grand Theft Auto IV is definitely the one that reviewers got wrong. I don't think it's as overrated among regular gamers. I heard plenty of criticism immediately after its release. But the 10/10s that reviewers gave it are just ridiculous. One game that I just don't get the love for is the Uncharted series, particularly the first one. They are by no means bad games, mind you, but I just don't understand the praise given to them. The platforming is decent, but fairly automatic and mostly devoid of any sort of intellectual challenge. There's nothing approaching the complexity of the puzzles in the three Tomb Raider games this generation, all of which I would say are better platformers than Uncharted. The camera also occasionally gets in the way of the platforming, locking itself to a "cinematic" view that looks nice but doesn't give a great view of where the game expects you to jump. I find the shooting in Uncharted 1 to be just plain bad, with bullet-sponge enemies and a cover system that is awkward at best. 2 and 3 are better about this, but still not great. And don't get me started on the supernatual enemies. They are never fun to fight at any point in the series.