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%% As much as you hate the game, PLEASE, don't engage in "Complaining About Games You Don't Like".
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* AwesomeMusic:
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTw2YvutJRA The music in the]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-b78TKZIyw&feature=player_embedded reveal trailer]] True to the game, it's called "Invaders Must Die."
** Ladies and gentlemen, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY_k5fTFoc8 Grabbag]]. The 2011 Edition.
* BreatherLevel: After [[spoiler:The Hive]] you go to the the strip club, and have a scavenger hunt to get a lap dance. [[spoiler:It turns out it was AllJustADream]].
** And in ''The Doctor Who Cloned Me'' DLC, [[spoiler:''The Burning Bush'' chapter]], which plays pretty much in the same way in that you're given a couple of scavenger hunt tasks to carry out.
* BrokenBase: Over the Two-Gun system. Some say it's a nice change, showing 3D Realms wasn't seeking to just re-hash Duke 3D in prettier graphics, and are willing to try different things with Duke. They also cite how it's only a gun limiter, not affecting pipe bombs, trip mines, steroids, and the like. Others say it's 3D Realms/Gearbox changing Duke to what's popular. Then there's a third party saying they did it because of consoles and their limited controls (the officially given reason), and that console FPS players would get confused and/or frustrated by having more than 2 guns at a time. This particular base breaker was alleviated somewhat in a patch which allows Duke to carry four guns at a time.
* CrazyAwesome: It's Duke Nukem. What did you expect? IncrediblyLameFun...?
* ContestedSequel: And let's leave it at that.
* CriticalBacklash / CriticProof: ''Duke Nukem Forever'' has gotten scathing reviews from many critics, yet it still managed to sell enough to be profitable. Some critics have even said they're [[http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/14/june-npd-duke-nukem-forever-is-2/ somewhat insulted]] with how well ''DNF'' has sold, in spite of the thrashing they gave it.
* CrossesTheLineTwice
* DemonicSpiders: Octabrains and berserk pig cops, capable of killing you in two hits. They always seem to be in tight areas with no cover. The Octabrains are also incredibly agile, capable of hurling things at you (including ammo from certain weapons you fired and your own pipe-bombs), and has an attack that can take out a large chunk of your ego bar, in addition to usually attacking in swarms, pulling double duty as GoddamnedBats.
* DudeNotFunny:
** One of the less popular aspects involve the Capture the Babe mode. When you grab the other team's "babe", sometimes she'll start to freak out and struggle as you take her back to your base, so you have to give her a smack on her behind to quiet her down. It rekindled the debate on [[http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-03-25-slapped-down-editorial sexism in games]].
** A XBOX magazine said this in their review.
--->''"For the most part, the game isn't so much offensive or misogynistic...one colossally misjudged sequence early in the game where the combination of nudity, body horror and at the end, a particularly unpleasant one-liner makes for a genuinely harrowing experience. The Alien Hive level, is filled with whimpering, tortured, semi naked women...Duke's trademark flippancy makes him sound like a total sociopath...we weren't expecting anything this distasteful, even from a Duke Nukem game."''
* FanHater:
** From critics as well as average gamers; for example, one such reviewer labeled ''DNF'''s fans as "[[http://gotgame.com/2011/07/16/duke-nukem-forever-refuses-to-die/ gullible twelve year olds]]."
** [[http://bigdamnpictures.blogspot.com/2011/06/reasons-why-duke-nukem-forever.html This guy]] goes so far as to call out pretty much ''all'' game critics who didn't express disgust at the game's sexism and condemn the game as terrible, whether or not they even ''liked'' the game.
* FoeYay: The audio recordings of Doctor Proton that plays in the training chambers of the ''Me, Myself and I'' chapter in the ''The Doctor Who Cloned Me'' DLC makes you wonder if he has feelings for Duke[[spoiler: especially when he gets to the ''love'' part]]. Adding to that is he's making ''clones'' of Duke, of all people.
** {{Lampshaded}} with the achievement you get when you finally defeat Doctor Proton: ''Heart To Heart''.
* GoddamnedBats: Octabrains. They tend to attack in swarms of two or more, they fly, they're incredibly agile, and if they're not throwing things littered around the game environment at you, a blast of their energy ball can knock helluva lot off your Ego bar. And did we mention that they can grab large ammo projectiles you fired (say, [=RPGs=], devastator rockets or your pipe-bomb) and hurl them back at you? And fighting them underwater just makes things more difficult.
** Somewhat mitigated by the fact that you can detonate pipebombs while the Octabrains are holding the projectile to hurl back at you, guaranteeing that they'll be caught in the blast radius. This is actually one of the best ways to beat them.
* HilariousInHindsight:
** Randy Pitchford left 3DRealms to form Gearbox Software. Guess which software studio is developing (and finishing) the game now...
** Gearbox, the company now in charge of ''Duke Nukem Forever'', are also the ones who ported ''{{Halo}}'' to the PC. In game, he finds Spartan armor and calls anyone who wears it a "pussy".
* HypeAversion / HypeBacklash: Given ''Duke Nukem Forever'''s reputation and the sheer ''length'' of its development history, in addition to the additional hype generated when it was close to release, this reaction was inevitable. Other than the reviews posted all over the internet, [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment we'll just leave it at that]].
* InternetBackdraft: The cover art seen above is rather unpopular with the fan base. Just head on to the Gearbox forums and look in [[http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=116434 this topic]]. Try and say the cover represents the game accurately, how Duke looks cool, or that his left arm looks perfectly fine to you.
* MartyStu: The Duke is played this way [[ParodySue for laughs]]. He's absolutely perfect. He practically owns the world at this point. He's worshiped by his women and audience, and he's so strong that he can lift 600-pound weights, force open high-tech doors using just his arms, and take down an alien fleet ''[[OneManArmy by himself.]]''
* MemeticMutation: "Always Bet on Duke", a tagline printed on one of the early promotional posters for the game; upon the announcement of the game actually getting released, people started saying they can finally cash in their bets.
** Interestingly, now that the game's been released, the Vaporware poster boy has become ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}} Episode 3''.
* {{Misblamed}}:
** Certain reviewers have put the blame for the finished product's various flaws wholly on Gearbox; some even seem to be under the impression that they restarted the game from scratch after they took over the project. In actual fact, the finished product is about 80-90% the product of 3DRealms, as George Broussard himself has frequently bemoaned. Whether Gearbox ''should'' have done a complete reboot of the project is a legitimate question, but most of the disturbing content was the product of 3DRealms.
*** However, Gearbox did remove Duke's DistaffCounterpart who would basically put Duke in his place.
** Gearbox also came under fire for threats to blacklist reviewers who rated the game poorly. It was actually The Redner Group, a public relations agency with Gearbox as a client, who was responsible for that statement. Gearbox promptly fired them.
*** Though, there was tacit approval from Gearbox beforehand - until there was a backlash from the gaming community.
* MostAnnoyingSound: Duke has exactly one grunt sound effect for when he jumps.
* OlderThanTheyThink: Most critics tend to forget that the "ego is health" mechanic first appeared in the Playstation game ''Land of the Babes'' and ''VideoGame/DukeNukemManhattanProject'', where doing things like shooting members of the women's resistence would lower your health (in the former), and that rescuing women and killing enemies would raise it (in the latter).
** Critics also forget that the alien-impregnated chicks in the Hive level are nothing new. ''Duke Nukem 3D'' featured many women captured by the aliens, stripped naked and imprisoned in pods or otherwise bound, begging Duke to kill them. Sometimes they were also surrounded by clutches of alien eggs (from which Protozoid Slimers would hatch and devour them if Duke did nothing).
* PortingDisaster: When the game was first released on the Xbox 360, the textures didn't load properly, the blood decals flickered constantly, the frame rate was very uneven, and the loading times were atrocious. However, after the release of ''The Doctor Who Cloned Me'', it seems like most, if not all, of these issues have been rectified.
* PungeonMaster: Debatable on whether Duke is one. Some of the one-liners are offhand puns of the situation--
-->'''Duke Nukem:''' (After mauling a pigcop with a forklift in Forkstop Part 2:) ''Fork'' you!
* ThatOneBoss: The Octaking.
* UnfortunateImplications: [[CaptureTheFlag Capture the Babe]] mode has your team capturing "Babes" (''Duke Nukem Forever''[='s=] version of a flag), and slapping said babe's bottom to calm them down when they try to distract you.
* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Most critics state that the game is a huge offender in this respect, due to the [[DevelopmentHell long development time]] and ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' being rather emblematic of TheNineties.
* UncannyValley: The Prospector, if the screenshots and videos of early builds of the game are anything to go by. He was left out in later revisions.
* WinBackTheCrowd: ''The Doctor who Cloned Me'' is considered by some to be better than the base game.
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