Hitman: Absolution

A number of factors go into deciding which game wins this coveted award. It goes without saying that a game has to make a thoroughly impressive showing, which is something that each of these 10 nominees can claim. But what sometimes separates a winner from a nominee is the element of surprise.

We didn't know anything about Hitman Absolution going into E3. All we could say was that the series has been on hiatus for five years, which hopefully meant developer Io Interactive had something big in the works--but what it showed us was far more impressive than we could have predicted. What Io is doing with Absolution is taking a series traditionally lacking in personality, injecting it with a remarkable sense of style and a flair for the dramatic, and then wrapping it all up in a grim atmosphere perfectly suiting the game's ruthless antihero.

Absolution's E3 demo was a scene of calm desperation punctuated by those sorts of startling moments that linger with you long after the demo ends. From the blaring, Inception-style music that opened the demo, to the blinding searchlights of the helicopter Agent 47 was so frantically trying to outrun on a rainy rooftop, to the tension-riddled final stretch when it seemed like Chicago's entire police force was staring a hole through 47's impromptu disguise, what we saw of Absolution was equally impressive and memorable.

The whole package was a bold proclamation of where this series is headed. We didn't know what to expect going into the show, but now Hitman Absolution is easily one of our most anticipated games.