Under-appreciated gem, basically a spiritual successor to Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Mass Effect is better for action, but Alpha Protocol is a much better RPG.

Best third-person shooter in awhile. The gameplay is nothing new and it plays better with a pad than mouse/keyboard on account of the control scheme following the Bioware school of "too many actions assigned to one button." Sand physics are sadly underused; you'll be using piles of sand to create makeshit smoke screens by tossing grenades into them more than burying numerous enemies in landslides. Big points for having both easy squad command and a squad that can competently aim their weapons; taking cover to regen health doesn't break the action like in GoW and the like, since you can give an order from cover for the squad to take out a troublesome target, ideally one at longer range than your weapons are good for or the one that shot you in the first place. The story and characters could've used more fleshing out (I blame the campaign's short length for this problem) but the story itself is a nice break from the usual generic military fare in most modern combat games.

Some of the best humor this side of Portal, and the horrible bugs at release have been fixed. Great multiplayer experience; you won't believe how uncoordinated you and your friends really are.