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You already know all about our love affair with Metro 2033, don't you? It's true, we're smitten with the admittedly less-than-perfect, but atmospheric, FPS. And the game's publisher (THQ) is probably living it up right now, several games deep into what could be called a roll at this point. What did other outlets have to say about it? Well, they tend to agree with us ... mostly!

• Game Informer (9.0): "Metro 2033 is an impressively polished and extremely linear experience that makes for an excellent debut ... From the second you start the campaign, you follow a straight line to the finale with only a handful of opportunities to explore alternate paths or side missions. What a glorious straight line it is."
• Official Xbox Magazine UK (8.0): "Metro 2033 excels at setting a scene and creating a tense atmosphere, and presents a very different post-apocalyptic world from Fallout 3: there's no black comedy, just unrelentingly bleak realism."
• GamePro (3.5/5 Stars): "The post-apocalyptic scenario has been done to death but Metro 2033's particular version still manages to stand out thanks to a fascinating backstory ... I just wish Metro 2033 had done a better job of explaining and exploring these themes, especially because the distinctly Russian perspective is so different from the 'Western' viewpoint that I'm intimately familiar with. But instead of taking the time to properly introduce you to the world and acclimate you to all the ins-and-outs, the developers throw you into the deep-end without anything resembling a life-preserver."

UFC Undisputed 2010 already has a shaved kodiak bear on its cover, so what else do you want? OK, how about a video of B.J. Penn just being sweaty and angry? Maybe some new pictures of the game in a gallery? Still not enough!? Then there are exclusive Ultimate Fights for the PS3 version, like:

• Ultimate 2009 Category -- UFN 18 – Carlos Condit vs. Martin Kampmann
• Ultimate Knockouts Category -- UFC 102 – Nate Marquardt vs. Demian Maia
• Ultimate Classics Category -- UFC 60 – Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie, UFC 66 – Keith Jardine vs. Forrest Griffin
• Ultimate Submissions Category -- UFC 68 – Martin Kampmann vs. Drew McFredries

We're sure more assets are coming. Just please, please don't punch us.

Do you remember the last time you fell in love with a game? I don't mean "really liked," I don't mean "played a ton," I mean loved.

I remember the moment it happened with me and Metro 2033. I hit the Back-button to check my objectives and was surprised to see my character, an everyman named Artyom, pull out a physical clipboard with notes scribbled on it and a built-in compass. Not only did I need to pull the Right-trigger to look at it, I needed to pull the Left-trigger to ignite a lighter because the dim glow of the Moscow subway tunnels in which much of the game takes place wasn't enough to read by.

It was a little thing, but such a clear indicator that this was a game Ukranian developer 4A Games had put its heart in to and, in a sense, it gave me permission to put mine in as well.

During an interview at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, THQ executive VP of Core Games Danny Bilson told Joystiq that market research creates "bland" titles, citing it is not a process his group is willing to utilize for future development. "We don't do research to find out what people want to play. If you need to do that kind of research you must not be playing games yourself," Bilson said, noting that research and overusing focus tests can "misguide creative forces."

According to Bilson, his core group at THQ is ruled by creating "excellent" titles. Put simply, Bilson says he will not ship a game if it's not "really good" -- noting that doing otherwise will make it impossible for him to "sleep at night." As an example of this process, Bilson noted his decision to push Darksiders from a 2009 release into the early-2010 calendar in order to ensure the game was of high quality. (Darksiders currently holds an average Metacritic rating of 83.)

"Inspiration comes from one place and research and focus testing will usually destroy it. It will usually create 'bland' and create something for everyone and really nothing for anyone," he said, praising the idea that publishers should not ship a game until it's ready. "If my teams make really good games, in the long run, that's what people relate to. They're not buying advertising, they're not buying Wall Street nonsense. They're buying what's on that disc."

"Very aggressive" is the phrase THQ executive VP of Core Games Danny Bilson used to describe his company's plans for downloadable titles across the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC platforms during a GDC 2010 interview with Joystiq. With two studios dedicated to the downloadable space -- THQ Digital Studios Phoenix (formerly Rainbow Studios) and THQ Digital Studios UK (formerly Juice Games) -- Bilson told us THQ plans to release "up to six" downloadable titles within the next year, some based on the company's biggest brands.

"We're going to be building stuff on some of our core brands," Bilson said, noting the plan is to create downloadable titles within the same universe as THQ's major franchises in order to improve brand awareness. Surprisingly, Bilson's plans include "giving away" some of the upcoming downloadable games, although he did not specify how this idea would be executed.

Bilson's theory is that by getting players "involved" in its franchises via downloadable titles, THQ can help drive pre-orders and awareness for their big-budget (in relation) retail counterparts. While he would not specify which THQ franchises would get downloadable titles, we were told the plan is to roll out this strategy on "two or three" of THQ's biggest franchises (à la Square Enix's upcoming Lara Croft game from developer Crystal Dynamics).

But the plan doesn't end there: Similar to the approach taken by Microsoft's Fable II: Pub Games experiment, downloadable releases based on THQ's major brands will unlock content within the retail releases, teasing players with potential advantages to purchasing related retail titles; retail games will also unlock content in downloadable titles, to help drive players to explore more content within that franchise's universe. "You're going to see some of our core brands built out in different kinds of gameplay to get people involved in the brands and drive awareness towards a launch."

In an interview with Joystiq during the 2010 Game Developer's Conference, THQ's executive VP of Core Games Danny Bilson let a few new details slip about the upcoming sequel to the critical-smash hit Red Faction: Guerrilla. "The new game takes [Red Faction] to a whole new place, it kind of goes back to the old Red Faction because about 80% of it is underground," Bilson said. According to Bilson, the as-yet-properly-named sequel -- which he describes as a "hybrid" between the first two titles in the Red Faction franchise and Guerrilla -- is planned for release in March 2011. (In February, THQ's annual investors conference call vaguely stated a Guerrilla sequel was planned for the company's "fiscal 2011" window.)

Bilson was tight-lipped on other details but did confirm the upcoming open-world third-person shooter would be far more "structured," akin to a "narrative" shooter. The sequel will still feature the destructibility Bilson says cost THQ "a fortune" to develop for Guerrilla, but will have a much greater impact on cities built closer together in the tight confines of the new underground world.

Although Guerrilla captivated most critics (netting a Metacritic average of 85 across three platforms) the third-person shooter failed to meet THQ's sales expectations. While Bilson said it would have been easy to scrap the characters and setting in the upcoming sequel and shift it into a new intellectual property -- effectively severing its connection to Guerrilla's poor retail showing -- he felt the quality in the previous entry was too great to abandon the Red Faction universe.

The strategy now, says Bilson, is to expose gamers to the series in order to prepare them for the future, citing the recent Red Faction: Guerrilla giveaway promotion as an example of giving the title the exposure it "deserved" at launch. "Giving away the stock now, on Red Faction, is getting more people exposed to the IP because we're going bigger on Red Faction next time," Bilson told us. "If the game wasn't so good, we wouldn't be giving it away at all."

Unlike the less than wonderful relations some developers are currently having with their publishing partners, Vigil Games' general manager David Adams says things between his studio and THQ couldn't have been better during the development of Darksiders. "We were pretty lucky, just because our publisher had this weird, insane faith in us that I don't necessarily think any other publisher would have had ... our take was that if we just did really cool stuff, people would see that -- they'd want to jump on the bandwagon and support us, and THQ did," Adams tells GamesIndustry.biz in a recent interview.

Adams adds that his studio is constantly "trying to be more efficient, do stuff quicker, using less money," so that certainly can't hurt how THQ feels about Vigil, especially given the last year of "restructuring" the publisher underwent to become financially solvent once again. "THQ went through a lot of pain and restructuring -- they took a lot of bullets so we could continue to make our game, and that's a good indication of their faith in us, and their drive to make great-quality products." We'd like to point out that, in this situation, we're all winners because THQ has seemingly become a competitive publisher again, due to producing quality products that we get to play -- and hey, tons of people don't lose their jobs.

THQ is bundling Red Faction: Guerrilla with UK copies of Metro 2033 on PC for the game's launch on March 19. To repeat, this has only been announced in the UK for the PC version of the post-apocalyptic Moscow metro romp. We're currently checking with THQ to see if a similar deal is planned for the States; in the meantime you can pick up Red Faction: Guerrilla for free now with a Steam pre-order of Metro 2033.

With a new Red Faction not that far off in the future, it appears that THQ wants to make sure everyone gets a chance to play last year's underrated entry.

THQ has confirmed the closure of Finnish developer Universomo, who worked on mobile licensed games for the publisher -- and whose original (and interesting-looking) DS game, Beat City, is expected to be released this spring. Paradoxically, the confirmation of the shutdown was given to Mobile Entertainment as part of a note about THQ's increased dedication to mobile gaming.

"We are very excited about digital gaming and have increased our investment in this area," a THQ rep said. "We have more than 15 games and entertainment applications scheduled for release on mobile handsets this year. That said, we did place Universomo into liquidation." THQ plans to use external companies for the development of these titles. Even so, it seems Universomo picked the wrong time to make a DS game instead of a cell phone game.

[Via Edge]

We suggested our enthusiasm for THQ's Beat City may be reduced upon seeing actual screenshots of the rhythm-based minigame collection. We're delighted to report that in addition to sounding like a neat idea, we think it looks pretty interesting as well! It's got an unusual geometric art style.

You can inspect the style of Beat City for yourself in our gallery, and even see storyboard-style sequences that are ... intended to explain the gameplay. We see an assembly line of crows being turned into parrots. We see a loving couple wearing outfits that grow spontaneously more ren-faire. We don't feel illuminated.

Honestly, taking the normal subway can be a pretty terrifying proposition. Those underground trains already play host to all kinds of unsavory creatures, so it's hard to imagine it being scarier. That is, unless you watch the above trailer for Metro 2033. If you thought the regular subway was bad, wait until you experience the subterranean horror that is the post-apocalyptic Russian metro system. Sure, that guy in the trench coat -- the one that smells vaguely of Vienna sausages -- is pretty scary, but he's got nothing on Metro 2033's giant bat creatures, explosions and hideous gray monstrosities.

Check it out in the video above. Oh, and if you want that massive automatic shotgun, you'll have to pre-order from GameStop. Metro 2033 hits the shelves beginning March 16.

A quick note for all the apocalyptic adventure-seekers out there: The promised Darksiders demo is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace. As previously announced, this is no ordinary demo, either. No, this sucker contains the game's first dungeon in its entirety, a chunk of gameplay that should take approximately 90 minutes to complete for the "average player." It's not often that publishers give away that much game for free, so be sure to give it a go.

Oh, and don't forget to post your completion time here in the comments. We're curious to see how close to the mark THQ's estimate is.

Shortcut: Download the Darksiders demo to your Xbox 360 [Via Xbox.com]

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising, a "standalone" expansion to last year's critically acclaimed RTS, will unleash the traitorous Chaos Space Marines on March 11, 2010. In the service of the Emperor, players will cleanse, purge and kill across a new single-player campaign with 15 missions, and will acquire a bunch of multiplayer enhancements for $30.

Remember, several retailers are offering a free copy of Saints Row 2 with a pre-purchase of the Chaos Rising expansion. So, while you're meditating on the idea that "an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded," why not bust some caps in posteriors around Stillwater?

Valve has announced that THQ's Metro 2033 will join the growing list of titles that support Steamworks. The PC version of the game will offer a number of Steamworks features, including Achievements, updates and DLC. So, you can look forward to earning some sweet, sweet cheevos while exploring the creepy environs of the Russian metro system. And trust us, it is creepy.

It's worth noting that with Steamworks support now official, it's likely that Metro 2033 will also be joining the ranks of downloadable titles that won't be offered by competing services like Impulse and Direct2Drive. If you're particularly loyal to another online distribution service, maybe a free copy of Red Faction: Guerrilla will help grease the hinges on the old wallet.

There's no getting around it -- THQ really, really wants you to play all of its games. After recently revealing that the code included in copies of Darksiders is redeemable for a free copy of Red Faction: Guerrilla, the publisher today announced that those buying the upcoming Dawn of War II expansion Chaos Rising will also snag a free PC copy of Saints Row 2.

That means slapping down your 30 buckaroos at GameStop or Best Buy (or your digital buckaroos at GameTap, Steam or Metaboli) nets you two games -- one of which we are assured allows you to spray human feces on anything nearby. If that isn't enough of a selling point, what is, you monster?