Tomb Raider: The best game so far this year

What I expected:  Due to pretty good marketing I was expecting a pretty solid adventure game that reboots the franchise with the desire to make Lara a person and not a sex object.

What I got:  All I expected and more.  Definitely my favorite action adventure game so far.  Solid adventuring (hey that's a word!), fantastic writing, fantastic everything really.  I found myself wanting to take screen shots of nearly every environment.  Only Bioshock Infinite makes me want to take more screenshots (B:I review tomorrow!).  

What I liked:  The entire single player campaign.

*  I was especially pleased with the writing.  Lara really does go from being a frail little girl who gets her ass kicked to a predator who is out to save her friends.  My thoughts towards her evolved as her character did.  This is some impeccable pacing and writing.  All the dialog felt like real  things people would say.  I never rolled my eyes.

*  Art Direction:  Everything has a sense of mystery to it.  The environments are all stellar.  I really don't get how they actually made half of these environments on the PS3.  There are some areas you come back to, and they manage to change them to make them interesting again.  Lara especially is incredibly beautiful.  Her texture work, animations, and voice acting is perfect.  I literally can't wait to see what the team comes up with next.

*  Puzzle design:  Similar to the Lara Croft xbla game, they do an excellent job of designing puzzles.  Finding out WHAT to do is the challenge  not HOW to do it.  They have some great visual ques, white paint basically means you can climb me.  This actually doesn't pop out of the environment and does a great job of providing information.

What I didn't like:  Multiplayer.  It's not bad per se, it is just incredibly mediocre.  It doesn't help that the mp crowd on PC was basically dead on day 1.  I was never able to join a ranked game of any kind.  Nor was I able to find a game (ranked or not) in one of the game modes.  Rescue?  I can't help but think if they wouldn't have spent any money on MP would they have broke even?

Final thoughts:   Amazing game, and if it wasn't for Bioshock Infinite, being so good, I would say Tomb Raider is easily the best game I've played this year.  I can't wait for the sequel, but I do have concerns about how they'll evolve Lara as a character.  Character development doesn't tend to happen much in non-RPGs, and it was a very enjoyable point to me.

How much did I pay:  $45

How many hours did I play:   21

Dollar per Hour:  $2.14

How much would I pay for this game in perfect hindsight:  $60

Why?   Simply put I have no problems paying $60 for a game that engages me for 12 hours.  I think I put about 10 hours into MP.  Heavily recommend.