God of War has two big strengths that make it a great game in my opinion. The first is the story with its great characters, presentation, and voice acting. The second is the overall “feel” of the game, which can be a bit “game-y” at times but is really tight overall with only a handful of core mechanics that are exceptionally well implemented.
Assuming that “masterpiece” refers to the quality and impact the games had in their time (not how well they aged) some of my picks would be:
Baldur’s Gate 2 + ToB
Star Wars: KotoR
Morrowind
Read Dead Redemption 2
The Witcher 3
The Last of Us 1+2
God of War
Shadow of the Colossus
The Legend of Zelda: BOTW
Mass Effect 1+2
Disco Elysium
Half Life 2
BioShock 1
Diablo 2
Fallout 2
I don’t know how objective this list is. Some picks are definitely subjective and fit more in a “flawed masterpiece” category of games that had a large impact on how I perceived games but that may not be so widely acclaimed as some others on this list.
Never said it was undeserved. The devs did a lot of things right, and they deserve all the positive feedback they get. It just didn’t click with me personally in a way that I felt like I needed to add to the hype.
It’s pretty good, although I think the hype is a bit over the top. The game is well done, enjoyable, and plays a lot like a modern JRPG (think Persona 5 and others).
What do you think about the game overall so far? My girlfriend loves AC, especially Origins and Odyssey, but was pretty disappointed in Valhalla and kind of meh about Mirage.
Civ games at launch are often a bit of a mixed bag, and the games improve over time with patches and expansions. That being said, the game isn’t even fully out yet, and early Steam reviews are notoriously unreliable and undifferentiated. For your first civ game, maybe look at earlier titles like Civ 5 or 6. They have aged very well, I still play 6 all the time.
True, but digital ownership is a fickle thing that depends in large part on how much I trust the seller. Between a >50% discount on Steam and a free game on Epic, I would still choose Steam every time, because I would feel like I “own” that game more than I would on Epic (where I would still hesitate to buy anything more than the 2-3 free games that would interest me there).
For me, it feels like a mix between Rimworld (colonists with schedules, traits, and skills) and Factorio (complex production chains, finite resources). Add to that a unique physics system, where everything has a weight, a melting point, a conductivity and so on, and you’ve got ONI.