All of this is FREE CHICKEN for Microsoft. As they haven't officially announced anything yet if all they do is observe a fraction of the backlash all they have to do is not require always online and come out looking like heroes. We'll see if they actually listen.

Look! There's an image of a woman on the front of the box!

AC3 could have been epic if they had just taken the extra time to fix all the bugs and streamline the missions. You had a very interesting point in history as your backdrop and they didn't properly exploit it. The AI was horrendously bad and the missions really weren't challenging at all. It wasn't all bad though. Visually the game looked great and it had some good concepts with the hunting and taking over the forts and whatnot. The game just lacked polish, which is a symptom of a set yearly release schedule. In AC3's case they wanted to release the game with the 2012 hoopla.

My experience: I played ME1 with a customized male character that looked like Wesley Snipes from Demolition Man but it looked funny every time he talked with that same vanilla voice of his. I played 2 and 3 with the default look. I stayed on the paragon side and I was a soldier class because I figured I could access those same powers with my squadmates. I'm currently playing through a second time as a renegade femshep who's a tough as nails c*&^ who people hate working for but if she works for you she is a very valuable asset. Reason I picked default at first is I wanted to play the game with how the writers probably intended it to be, now I'm trying a different dynamic and having some more fun with it.

@RupKumars @EmphaZima I can only hope. Although a wise man once said "Hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up first."

Wake me up when they've increased the phone booth city sizes.

Don't people fill out score sheets in baseball and bowling too? Anyway I don't see anything coming from this. Back in 98-99 after Columbine they attacked the videogame industry and the music industry as well. President Clinton also called upon the movie industry to enforce their ratings so for a few weeks I was carded multiple times when I tried to see the movie American Pie. It soon all went away.

Wouldn't it be funny if you bought this crap and the next day and MS had a double XP weekend? Would you get quadruple XP then?

@lucutisborg @EmphaZima @Saidrex Just so we're clear I hate DRM as much as anyone else. I also happen to fit into a demographic that doesn't always have a constant internet connection. For Simcity and Simcity only I was willing to look past the DRM. As for microtransactions, in a game like this in particular, I welcome new buildings, new tile sets etc. I consider myself more of a console gamer now because of all these restrictions and I will not be purchasing the new Xbox if it requires an always on connection. That's ludicrous.

@Saidrex For a game like Simcity, because I was such a fan, I was willing to look past the DRM. EA will eventually fix the servers. I also don't think microtransactions is bad for a game like this. I actually think it's good. But like I said below I can't deal with the miniscule city sizes. They're shaped like small squares and the city just cuts off where the boundary is. The cities look so disconnected. This is NOT Simcity folks.