You know, I was looking forward to getting a review copy of Star Trek: The Video Game. Then it turned out that they weren’t sending out review copies of Star Trek. Turns out that I was spared from a game so bad that I’ve been forced to use the classic Star Trek double facepalm rather than the game’s box art as we usually do.

The problems with Star Trek: The Video Game are probably too numerous to list here. However, the big ones are terrible AI, clipping issues, issues forcing you to restart the game, not having drop-in, drop-out co-op and the PC version’s online co-op not working. As a result, it’s joined Aliens: Colonial Marines and The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct for worst game of 2013. As with the other two, there’s so much potential in Star Trek and it’s all been completely squandered.

Eurogamer (60%): When the music soars, the characters align and the combat gels, Star Trek becomes a rare movie game that rises above its peers and delivers something genuinely fun. It’s only ever a partial success though, too bogged down by timid design and technical rough edges to really be the game that Trek deserves.

AtomicGamer (50%): It just doesn’t seem like developer Digital Extremes were able (or allowed) to put forth the time, money, or ingenuity to make anything but a Starfleet-themed cooperative shooter, complete with extreme use of cover-based gunfights, silly mini-games, or bad AI – all of which are generally considered hallmarks of a mediocre action game.

The Globe and Mail (40%): It’s evident that some serious effort went into parts of Star Trek, but some of the key elements – like how the game looks and plays – got short shrift. At best it’s a mess that looks and feels dated, and at worst it is frustrating and unplayable.

VideoGamer (30%): It is so immensely tiresome, so poor and such a cash-in that it has inspired me to change the way I review games, for one night only, and take the same approach to reviewing the game that it does to your time: put loads of bad things in linear succession.

Polygon (30%): Star Trek has picked up practically every bad habit of the past five years of game design. Hinky ledge traversal. An arbitrary upgrade system. Hacking minigames that evolve from “dull” to “Ambien” through the course of the game. Samey secondary weapons. It’s almost messianic in its willingness to take all of gaming’s sins onto its rickety frame. Sadly, unlike Jesus, the death of Star Trek would do nothing to dismiss these sins; they’ll still be just as present tomorrow.