Destiny: The Taken King

Destiny has been divisive from the start, frustrating some players with its hard-to-penetrate lore, repetitive grinds, and Byzantine leveling system. It's also captivated others with superlative combat, terrific camaraderie-building co-op missions, and the promise of ever more enviable loot. Destiny: The Taken King tries to fix some of the things people have long been complaining about while pushing the bar further in areas the series already does well.

The new missions are well designed and are set in some gorgeous new locations filled with interesting artifacts. More importantly, the missions have comprehensible narratives and characters who spout interesting (sometimes even funny) lines. Plus, simple changes to how basic systems -- such as bounty collecting -- work serve to make the game flow noticeably more smoothly. But all this being said, many players still will have difficulty working out what they need to do to grow their characters. Hitting the new maximum level cap of 40 doesn't take much time at all, but acquiring the proper gear to improve your Light level -- which has a big impact on a guardian's strength -- does. And Bungie still doesn't offer matchmaking for its raid missions (arguably the best part of the game), which effectively locks this content from anyone who doesn't have a large group of reliable friends with whom to play for long stretches. Still, there's no doubt that most of the changes Bungie did make have turned Destiny -- a good game that always required a bit of fixing -- into something measurably better.