The 15 Hottest Games of Summer

Gamers have plenty to be excited about this summer as an onslaught of games begins. To save you some time, we've narrowed the list of wannabe wing-dingers down to 15 hot titles that range from campy shooters and sword-fu fighters to rhythmic rockers and bank-robbing bonanzas. We even have one game--Will Wright's Spore--that lets you nurture a single-celled protozoan blob and grow it into a galaxy-gobbling species.

PC World's two gaming experts--Matt Peckham, who writes our Game On blog, and Senior Writer Darren Gladstone, a self-described gaming nut and author of our Casual Friday column--weigh in here with their opinion of each game.

An interesting side note for PC gamers: Over half the titles in this list include PC versions, with two of those exclusive and one, Spore, an apparent blockbuster if it lives up to even half its prerelease hype.

(Want to see snippets of these games in action? We've got another version of this story with embedded game trailer videos.)