Aw man, I recently bought RE5 and 6 from Humble Bundle just to see how bad the games are.
RE5 is bad, but in a somewhat enjoyable way. It helps that Chris Redfield’s biceps are as big as his head, which adds to the accidental funniness.
I remember buying Duke Nukem Forever in a Humble Bundle, a bundle that I had virtually every other game for the price. I remember only paying $1 and I gave *all* that money to charity.
I played DNF. I still felt robbed. To this day I haven’t completed it due to how terrible it is (if my memory serves me, I’ve been minaturised and I’m driving around in a tiny car? But the controls are awful and Duke now seems like a Trump like character whose charm is entirely devoid in modern times. It was already wearing thin back when it was released, too).
I think Valve has the capacity to make some truly excellent stuff, but they only seem to care if it increases their wallets in a significant way.
After Architect, I’m very cautious about any Valve multiplayer game as it is bound to become infected with ways to extract money (or “value”, as Gabe Newell puts it) from the customer.