My mother always said that if you don’t have anything nice to say then just don’t say it at all. Unfortunately for me, since I work as a critic I do not have that luxury and as luck would have it, Valve’s Left 4 Dead is one of those games that I wish I could just stay quiet about.

First of all I have to give credit to Valve for creating something that I’ve never seen before: a button-masher shooter. You can be blind, strung out on heroin, have an arm tied behind your back while watching The Best of Jerry Springer Vol. 2 and still kill over 100 zombies a level; easily. All you have to do is keep on firing and if you need to reload but are still being charged just block a doorway and keep on swinging your weapon. Eventually all the zombies die. Again.

I’m a zombie lover (and before any jokes start flying around I’m not talking about necrophilia); what I mean is that I own most zombie movies made and if there was an Armageddon and I had a vote I would most definitely cast my vote for the zombie holocaust and even then I could not get myself to like this game. Left 4 Dead really is a no-brainer and I don’t mean that as a clever compliment for a zombie game. Because of the lack of thought and creativity behind the project I almost think that zombies designed this game. After two hours of gameplay all I wanted was for zombies to eat me so I would not have to suffer through the game anymore. And this is coming from someone who can watch Dawn of the Dead back to back. But I guess you have to make your own decision. Maybe I’m really not the zombie fan that I thought I was and maybe you would really like this game, but before making this purchase I really hope that you read the rest of the review and not just the conclusion.