wolfsrain: Thing is...There was no freaking marketing, no hype. Still, the game sells. People that discover Spec Ops: The Line usually recommend the game to their friends (personally i bought it in a sale, after hearing some nice things from a friend of mine). I've recommended the game further in my little circle of friends and they've bought it and were thrilled with the purchase. Some of my less fortunate buds, grabbed the 2K Bundle just for that game.
I heard about Spec Ops many months after its release, game already thrown into the sales. If i knew earlier, i would have paid a full price (and i don't do that very often).
Three games impressed me in 2012, all staying under my radar because of poor marketing: Spec Ops: The Line, Sleeping Dogs and Binary Domain. All have great storytelling and atmosphere, with Sleeping Dogs adding a good gameplay. It's unfortunate what happened with Spec Ops: The Line and Binary Domain and the mismanagement of those titles by Take Two and Sega was criminal. At least Sleeping Dogs went up in sales quickly, despite Square Enix having zero faith in their published title. But those other two..People are just discovering them now, still by accident, still by word of mouth. Those two will become, most likely, cult classics. Just like many other commercial flops before...
After hearing so many good things about Spec Ops: The Line, it's really advancing in my To Play list! Thanks for the recommendations.