At the end of each year we have a tradition of collecting our staff’s opinions on entertainment from the past twelve months and assembling them into lists to close out the year. While there always will be some fantastic movies, TV shows, and video games, unfortunately there also will be some disappointing stumbles. We hate to lay this on you on Christmas Day, but these grievances need to be aired. In keeping with Fandomania tradition, here are our staff’s picks for the biggest geeky disappointments of 2012!

Jason’s Disappointment: BioWare

What I had hoped was a one-off misstep with 2011’s Dragon Age II turned out to be the first symptoms in an all-out quality drain from BioWare, the video game studio formerly synonymous with the highest quality games in the Western RPG genre. 2012 was the year when BioWare turned legions of fans against them by releasing a grievously disappointing conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy, which should have been the capstone to a science fiction franchise on par with classic Star Wars. And speaking of Star Wars, it also was the year when BioWare’s ill advised and executed foray into the MMO market resulted in The Old Republic presenting disappointing results, followed by the exit of the two founders of the studio. BioWare has new projects in the works for the coming year, but they’re going to have to do some spectacular work to earn back all the goodwill they burned in 2012.

Celeste’s Disappointment: Doctor Who (and Steven Moffat)

What was once one of my favorite shows on TV is now something I can’t even force myself to watch. My opinion of Doctor Who started declining during Series 6, and by last year’s Christmas special I was pretty irritated with Steven Moffat’s constant sexism (and racism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism — you name it) and blatant disregard for continuity, integrity, character development, and pretty much everything else that makes TV shows good. But I kept hoping the good parts of Doctor Who would shine through and outweigh the bad parts. Instead, the writing got progressively worse (apparently plot holes are also bigger on the inside) and, after having to convince myself pretty much every week during the first half of Series 7 this year to just give it one more episode, I give up. Until Moffat’s gone, I just can’t watch this show anymore.

Kimberly’s Disappointment: Revolution

I’ll admit that I gave up on this one pretty early on, but with too many characters and confusing storylines, Revolution just didn’t do it for me. It’s a shame, too, because with Eric Kripke and many Supernatural guest stars, it was ready-made for me to love.

Lauren’s Disappointment: REC 3

I love and adored the original REC and the sequel REC 2. Both were intense and gritty and downright frightening; however, REC 3 was a slapstick gore fest. After having such an amazing terrifying build up and finding the origin was more or less a joke, well, I was not amused.

Ann’s Disappointment: Doctor Who

Doctor Who made us wait so long for the new series, and we had to put up with Amy Pond for another five episodes — just leave already! I have definitely been longing for the days of one- or two-season companions, in the theory that it’s better to leave fans wanting more than make them tired of the companion(s). And don’t get me started on how, when we finally did get rid of them, it was by way of the abuse and misuse of my former favorite monsters from one of the best New Who episodes of all time…

Ava’s Disappointment: Revolution

This show read like a genre fan’s dream — a collaboration between JJ Abrams and Eric Kripke, a slightly dystopian vibe where all the electricity stopped working, and great fights in the ruins of modern cities with bows, arrows and swords, all wrapped around a mystery of who caused it and why. What it turned out to be was a confusing, gloppy mess with an unbelievable heroine and supporting characters that weren’t much more believable. The plot holes have been gaping, and the entire story disjointed. Made it through 5 or 6 episodes, DVRed each of the rest but never had the desire to finish watching.

Kendra’s Disappointment: American Reunion

When this was announced, I won’t lie, I flipped out with excitement. Then it hit theaters and no one would go with me, so as soon as it was in Redbox I picked it up. I then figured out why no one would pay over two bucks for it. It was nice to see all the characters together again, but the lack of full participation from the original cast caused it to fall short as a whole.

Dax’s Disappointment: True Blood

This show was a lot of fun for a long time when the characters were interesting and there was a central story to pull everything together. I will admit that I gave up on this long before the end of the season, so maybe it did all come back together, but poor character development turned this into a group of caricatures running around doing exactly what you expected of them. Suddenly characters were even more spread out than usual and it never felt like everything going on belonged in the same show. Fairies, vampires, and werewolves have never been so uninteresting.

Sarah’s Disappointment: Doctor Who

I love Doctor Who, but this year’s half season just didn’t connect with me. The highlight was the first episode and the surprise introduction of the new companion. From that point on, the series lost steam. While each episode felt big, none of them felt personal. And *spoilers* when Amy and Rory left the show in “The Angels Take Manhattan,” all I could feel was relief that it was the start of something new.

There you go… A big bunch of disappointment to start off our week-long year end wrap-up! Did we miss anything that was particularly disappointing to you from 2012? Let us know in the comments!