Dan Stapleton Avatar Image

Dan Stapleton


Favorite Games:
  • XCOM: Enemy Within
  • Fallout 4
  • FTL: Faster Than Light

129 games reviewed
77.1 average score
79 median score
51.9% of games recommended

Dan Stapleton's Reviews

I'm IGN's Executive Editor in charge of game reviews. I've been a professional game critic since 2004, when I started at PC Gamer Magazine, and served as Editor in Chief for GameSpy.com from 2012 to 2013.
Oct 3, 2024

Starfield's Shattered Space expansion ably fills in the Va'ruun-shaped hole in the main campaign, but doesn't shatter conventions with new abilities that would make a replay more exciting.

Read full review

8 / 10.0 - Frostpunk 2
Sep 17, 2024

Thanks to a ground-up rethinking of its ice-age city builder mechanics, Frostpunk 2's larger scale is less intimate but more socially and politically complex than the original.

Read full review

Aug 1, 2024

SteamWorld Heist 2’s charming nautical adventure refines the original’s clever turn-based combat with a flexible mix-and-match class system and handmade maps that are built around teamwork.

Read full review

8 / 10.0 - Capes
May 29, 2024

Capes is a clever and challenging tactics game with a clear love of the superhero comics that inspired it. And no one actually wears a cape.

Read full review

8 / 10.0 - Homeworld 3
May 10, 2024

Homeworld 3's single-player campaign brings the series' epic space battles in for intense, close-quarters combat on visually diverse maps full of enormous obstacles to plan around. At the same time, it delivers an unexpectedly personal story that leans a little too heavily on the cliche of a new-generation protagonist seeking out the old.

Read full review

8 / 10.0 - Homeworld 3
May 10, 2024

Homeworld 3's multiplayer skirmish mode may be barebones, but it gives us all we need to wage visually impressive war with fleets of starships. The co-op War Games mode, on the other hand, gets an extra boost from its novel roguelite-style progression.

Read full review

Dec 5, 2023

Arizona Sunshine 2 keeps the pressure on for a long campaign of zombie slaying full of satisfyingly gory head shots, entertaining humor, and the bond between a lonely man and his dog.

Read full review

7 / 10.0 - Starfield
Aug 31, 2023

Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.

Read full review

Apr 26, 2023

If Respawn makes a third game like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Fallen Order, it'll complete the best Star Wars trilogy in 30 years, hands down.

Read full review

Nov 30, 2022

Marvel's Midnight Suns is an expansive tactical RPG that makes great use of card game mechanics to inject variety and unpredictability into its excellent combat.

Read full review

Oct 17, 2022

Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is a major leap forward from atop the shoulders of its surprisingly smart and charming predecessor, bringing a wonderful amount of flexibility to its turn-based tactical battles.

Read full review

Aug 26, 2022

Crypto's material has worn a bit thin. While Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed does a respectable job of making his second rampage look good, its small assortment of new weapons and enemies makes it feel like an unambitious expansion rather than a sequel.

Read full review

Jun 3, 2022

Hardspace: Shipbreaker makes disassembling giant spacecraft piece by piece fun for a bit, but due to a lack of variety in its puzzle-like objectives it soon devolves into hard labor.

Read full review

8 / 10.0 - Weird West
Mar 31, 2022

Weird West's five dark-fantasy adventures contain a wagonload of bizarre encounters, twists, and reveals, and its stealth and chaotic combat are challenging but come with the built-in safety nets of unlimited slow-motion and an old-school quickload system.

Read full review

Feb 11, 2022

It may look extremely basic, but if you give Vampire Survivors' clever one-stick shooter idea a chance to sink its teeth into you it might not let go for a while.

Read full review

8 / 10.0 - Chorus
Dec 4, 2021

Chorus gives you fun and flashy superpowers that make its space dogfights stand out, along with its strong main characters and beautiful scenery.

Read full review

Jun 30, 2021

Mass Effect 2's Legendary Edition upgrades the graphics to near-modern standards and lets us immerse ourselves in the best game in BioWare's epic RPG trilogy all over again.

Read full review

The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos isn't a grand finale for Obsidian's RPG, but it gives us an intriguing whodunnit in a new location and a reason to return for another adventure with the crew of the Unreliable.

Read full review

9 / 10.0 - Monster Train
Dec 17, 2020

Do you like Slay The Spire? If so, you should absolutely try Monster Train's more tactical spin on the deck-building roguelike, which literally layers on new ideas and has every bit as much depth and variety.

Read full review

Oct 28, 2020

Watch Dogs: Legion's bold use of roguelike mechanics in an open-world action game pay off in interesting ways, making this visit to near-future London feel more varied than the previous two games.

Read full review