Most Disappointing Game of the Year so far...

Portal 2!

Yup.  :(

Graphics/Sound B (still using source engine I believe, they're probably pushing it's limits now)
Story A
Characters A+
Dialogue/Voice acting A++
Gameplay C-

What a horrible disappointment.  They've dumbed down the game so much.  Now I've heard all the arguments about trying to cater to the "mainstream audience", so that's why they made the game much less challenging than Portal 1.  Portal 1 was about figuring how the puzzle worked, then having the skills necessary to execute the plan.  Portal 2 completely took the skill portion of the game away.  Valve degenerated the game to another "find the next door, find the key to that door" puzzle game.  So Portal 1 had some tough timing and skillshot puzzles, but that's what made it Portal.  The puzzle solving methodology in Portal 2 has been done so many times in so many different games although it is packaged with the pretty wrapping of smart mechanics (portals and gels), excellent story and even better characters.  At it's heart, although Portal 2 is still smart, it's very slow and (story and charcters aside) boring.

Tetris provides more of an adrenaline rush than Portal 2.

Sure, there's still the satisfaction of the "aha!!" moment when you figure out how the room works and then develop the plan to solve the room.  But after that, there's no excitement of actually executing the plan, especially since they handhold you so much throughout the game by limiting the surfaces where you can place portals.  And yes while they put in conversion gel, the gel only made you think outside the box in at most 2 levels.  The rest of the time it was like

1. scan the room for surfaces where I can place portals
2. place the portals in the limited number of surfaces in the room
3. go from portal a to portal b like a drone with no sense of urgency since there were no timing puzzles, no skill needed of placing portals on moving objects or placing portals while flying through the air. 
4. Repeat steps 1-3

In Portal 1, even after you got your ducks in a row, it took skill to shoot those ducks because they would still be moving all around after you lined them up.  In Portal 2, after you lined them up, they just sat there for you and you could shoot one, go make lunch, come back and shoot another one.  In Portal 1, you had much MUCH more freedom to place portals and therefore had to really think of where portals should go. And even after the "aha!!" moment of formulating your plan of how to escape the room, you still have to do some pretty skillful running and gunning in order to succeed in that plan.

With all the hype of the "Portal" name behind it, Portal 2 is a great disappointment.  I wish they would have made the slow paced puzzle solving game and packaged it with another story and called it "Portal - Snail edition" or something and saved this story with the same fast paced puzzle solving from Portal 1 and made that into this current iteration of Portal.  I found myself more interested in the story and advancing the through the game just wanting to listen hilarious dialogue of Wheatley (voiced by the hilarious Stephen Merchant) than actually wanting to complete the rooms and puzzles themselves. 

Valve, the DLC you promised to Portal 2 better be free and give the level of challenge that Portal 1 did.

I guess if Portal 2 was named something totally different and wasn't made by Valve, I probably would have enjoyed the game much more.

"If there is a god, then why did he make me an aethiest?" - Ricky Gervais