Warlock suffers from what WoM did, there really is no personality. It works. It's okay. But it's a Civ 5 mod based on what feels like alpha Civ 5 technology.

Also whomever said Master of Mana, please keep in mind that Kael made FFH fun. He's good at what he does as evident from how FE has come out . Some people are blessed with knowing how to make 4x fantasy games work and its Kael.

edit: Know that my compliments don't come cheap obviously so feel really flattered, Kael . Though embarking and boats in FE is really terrible and unintuitive,

Diablo 3?

/pimpslap

Naja, FE ist ganz gut gemacht. Leider spielen sich alle Fraktionen zu ähnlich. Es wäre sicher nicht falsch später neue Fraktionen mit gravierend anderem Spielablauf einzuführen. Die Milizeinheiten der Städte sind auch etwas zu schwach ausgefallen, aber ansonsten läßt es sich sehr gut spielen.

Note that each faction plays very differently.  It's one of the very real strengths of the game.  So be sure to change your playing style to match that of your faction!

You know what's really sad? It probably will win Game of the Year because Blizzard has long arms and DEEP pockets yah know.

And my twopence.  

Game is fab and no problems as yet.

Xcom has a very limited life even with £500 worth of DLC.  FE on the other hand, the sky's the limit.

I would vote FE for game of the year, with out a doubt.

Slow down skippy. Let's enjoy what we have but lets not get crazy.

Torchlight 2 is my personal game of the year so far, really appreciate the kind words tho maybe I would think FE was goty if I hadn't worked on it so long

You are kidding right? I played Diablo 3 extensively and it's horrible.

For me it's Tekken Tag Tournament 2

and Dark souls PC (with required mod's of course)

I've owned rolls of toilet paper were more fun than Diablo 3. 

The other games I can't speak to.

oops

I only play strategy games, so there is no doubt in my mind. Fallen Enchantress is the game of the year. After an expansion or two giving us naval and sea-stuff etc (oh, yes, and please multiplayer), it will easely become among the top 5 games ever in my opinion. Hell yeah, it's already among the 5 best games I've ever played in my 35 years on this planet. I'll rank them like this:

1. The Civilization series 1-5

2) The Europa Universalis series 1-3 (and soon the one to beat them all, number EU 4 next year)

3) Galactic Civilization series

4) Elemental; Fallen Enchantress

5) X-Com (Only played the original so far)

These 5 games have a quality unmatched by any other strategy game out there.

2012 for me

Fallen Enchantress - 86/100

Warlock: Master of the Arcane 84/100 (its good at what it does, but its not as deep as FE)

XCOM - 80/100 (there is not enough randomness or variation, so you can find optimal strategies fast - a real "sandbox" mode and it could have been 95/100)

Tropico 4 84/100 (great little gem)

Endless Space 70/100 (bland, missing personality)

Unreleased:

Kings Bounty: Warriors of the North (I love the new KB games to bits)

honestly, for strategy gaming, it'll probably be FTL. That game's weaknesses are pretty minor.

The AI issues with all these empire management games are much bigger issues. They have lots of other neat stuff, but in terms of pure strategy they always fall short.

I second this opinion. In FE, there is obviously a lot of effort, and I applaud that, but there are better games out there.

For me, game of the year 2012 is Dishonored so far - it's a bit consolized, but brilliant.

I agree Warlock is a good game too, but it doesent come up to the class of Fallen Enchantress to me. It's far easier, AI can't compare, less complex, and doesent have the same rich epical world and RPG feel to it. I also like fantasy strategy games to have turn based tactical battles in their own screen... it's just how it has to be in the fantasy changre for me.

Thinking of Diablo 3 I feel profound sadness. I mean, they aren't even 'dumbing down' for consoles, but they're still managing to dumb down their games. Blizzard used to have creativity, but these days they seem to be going backwards. Don't get me wrong - I'm still glad they exist as a primarily PC game developer, but their games no longer interest me. If Diablo 3 had been released by a different developer under a different name it would have gotten just slightly above average reviews (especially with the £40 price tag and always on DRM)... as it is it gets 9's and 9.5's across the largely paid-off board.

Torchlight 2 - excellent value for the price, a really nice game.

XCOM unfortunately didn't do it for me - I bought it, played it for a bit and got bored. The maps are so small, and they seem to repeat a lot (or look very similar) and the Alien spawns are so predictable - not just where and when on the map an alien will appear, but even how many of that particular alien will spawn. I'm sorry but that is really bad. In the original XCOM you never knew what was around the next corner, and sometimes even when the alien icon appeared (to suggest an alien was within your soilders' view) you could barely see it yourself because it was hidden in shadows. In the new XCOM I feel as though I know exactly what's around the next corner, and what annoying alien cutscene i'm going to get when it 'spawns'.

Dishonored is pretty good, a bit more original having an assassin style game in first person, but the graphic quality isn't great for a modern title and the textures are pretty low resolution. Still it's a nice new title (rather than yet another sequel), and i'd probably give it 8 out of 10.

Fallen Enchantress...? Just thinking about it makes me sad. You see it's easily the best game here (in my opinion), but because it doesn't have a big name title or history behind it (XCOM), and it doesn't have a bucketload of hype (Dishonored), and it isn't developed by Blizzard (Diablo 3) it probably won't do as well as these other games. It won't get the same publicity and it won't get the usual "oh my god the hype surrounding this game is so huge let's give it an extra 10% on the score" reviews.

But it's still the best game here - the care and attention to detail is clear for all to see.

Thank you for all your efforts - I look forward to seeing where the game goes in the future.

Goty awards are always voting contests so most popular games always get it. It has nothing to do with quality. Even if FE was 2x better it would never win it due to not enough people enjoying these kind of games. 

XCOM was severely dumbed down for it to appeal to mass audience. Yes it fun in it own way but it is not half the quality of a 15+ year old game. 

BTW if ME3 didn't have such a huge outcry about the end I would bet it would win Goty everywhere (or was ME3 last year?!)

Game is fun but not Game of the Year fun. 

Your right people do have the right to voice their opinion even opinions that don't agree with yours.

Yes I would rank Warlock above FE. However FE spell system is way better than the after thought spell system of Warlock.  One of the most disapointing aspects in Warlock was Spells. Hell I only use 3 spells in the game which is not good for a Fantasy based game. But everything else is pretty good.

Game of the year? Naw. The below is my opinion based on the games I have played past and present.

While I would label torchlight 2 the bargin of the year (it was $20 new; $15 for many); I would not label it the game of the year. For me it lacked depth and personalty. While an older game I felt titan quest (plus expansion) had far better class development and was much more interesting. Warlock Master of arcane was fun for a game or two but has many flaws and lack of depth (imho).  I think they could fix the game somewhat but I don't see it happening. Xcom and Dishonored are both very promising as games of the year - though xcom cuold use a bit more depth and dishonored is a bit short.

My few of FE is similar to warlock; though it has more depth than warlock and in that regards is a bit more fun it has a lot of issues (some of which are simply my preference which do not match the developers and some are technical which might be fixed over time).

I haven't played borderland yet (mostly because I'm waiting for a game+dlc package (really hate the dlc model); but i did enjoy the character of borderland 1 and from what I hear I would enjoy this game more. To be honest I've only done brief triage into xcom and dishonroed so I really shouldn' be giving a full opinion above; torchlight 2 I did two full run but the second was a struggle (just found it kind of boring). I've heard good things about sleeping dog and max payne 3 but there are only so many hours a day.

Legend of grimlock was fun (but short) and I still want to play shogun2 (plus add on). Hum. To be honest I think I will stop here because I have no clue what is game of the year this year. None of the games I've played so far have really pulled me in with a wow factor as some games have in the past. I think the last great game I played was Dragon Age (I hated the combat but the rest of the game was a lot of fun).

Having said that I definitely prefer FE to Warlock (but I think with a few changes to warlock I could feel the other way).

That was a medicore game. It looked and played nearly exactly like Civ 5 and was a huge disappointment. It didn't do anything new or innovated, just changed the look and took out some of the good things from Civ 5 (which it already had few of.)

FTL is hard to say. It is a really strong and hella addictive game, but it lacks depth. The only thing you keep you playing is trying to unlock new ships and that is more of a gimmick than a mechanic. 

I agree that it's a great game, but it's a little too niche and has a few too many rough spots yet to be considered for top honors.  Maybe best strategy game of the year which tends to be a more wide open field, although there's a strong case to be made for XCOM: Enemy Unknown in that category.

I can only conclude that any gamer who thinks that Diablo 3 is "crap" has become entirely too jaded and cynical toward his hobby.