Star Trek: The Video Game from Namco Bandai Games sneaked onto consoles and PC's earlier this week, and there's a reason why you haven't seen reviews plastered all over various site, showering it with praise.
Games based on movie properties tend to have a history of not making the best kind of games. Obviously there are exceptions to that rule here and there, Chronicles of Riddick, or Goldeneye, but the recent Star Trek falls well and away from these gems.
Star Trek's best score at 60 comes from X360 Magazine, whose review begins simply with, "Star Trek is wrong." On the plus side, the game looks great, and features voice work from the movie's cast to help draw in the audience, but that's not enough to save it:
As we've seen from the previews, Kirk and Spock set their phasers to stun in this over the shoulder cover shooter, but as X360 notes, the enemy choice of Gorn doesn't lend itself to gameplay:"the Gorn are so awkwardly shaped - so long from head to tail - that when they take cover they still leave a good third of themselves exposed, which destroys a large part of what a third-person cover-shooter actually is. Star Trek is also very, very linear."
Kotaku took issue with the game's abhorrent AI, the reviewer taking a poke at how Spock would put it: "'I'm really hurting here,' exclaimed the dashing and courageous Captain James T. Kirk, bruised and bloody on the cold metal floor of the space station, phaser gripped tight in his shaking hand. 'That's the logical result of charging face-first into a fortified turret, you stupid son-of-a-bitch,' I replied in a calm, measured tone. My Spock is a bit of a potty mouth."
The worst score was "awarded" by Polygon, who gave the game an appalling 30, and warns gamers, "It is too late for Chris Pine. It is not too late for you." Polygon took similar issues with the game's Gorn adversary, and understandably so. When Star Trek previewed the race's return from 60's hokeyism, I thought it was a sign that other cheesey but adored characters might make an appearance as well, like the occasional Tribble perhaps. But this is not the case, and the Gorn is the only enemy Kirk and Spock fight against. Overall, Polygon said the game is "a collection of every sin of the modern third-person shooter."
The majority of the reviews come from the console versions, ie, 360 and PS3. The PC version however, that's a whole other situation. I refer you to Destructoid's article on the matter, aptly titled, "Star Trek on PC is broken as f*ck!"
Here's a quick summation of the scores Star Trek has garnered so far:
4/10, Edge Online: "Star Trek has more bugs crawling on it than a Fear Factor contestant...Even when the game is functioning as intended, it’s a bland, joyless affair, timidly going where hordes of mediocre games have gone before."
6/10, Eurogamer: "Your AI partner will run headlong at an enemy turret, get shot down and then sit there in front of the gun asking to be rescued rather than shuffling to safety. Enemies will run right past you or else stay behind cover without moving. Characters are constantly getting stuck in weird animation loops or jamming on the scenery. Low-resolution textures abound and character models are stiff and puppet-like, with rigid faces that make a mockery of the actors' efforts. There's an alarming lack of polish for a game that's been in development for at least two years."
3/10, Hardcore Gamer: "Unfortunately, there’s no way getting around this so I’ll say it out right away: Star Trek is a bad game. It may have everyone you loved from the 2009 film, but this is a downright poor attempt to capture the glory of the Star Trek name. Instead of focusing on quality, Digital Extremes focused on quantity, increasing the overall length of the campaign while shoving in multiple gameplay mechanics into an already bland experience."
