Fuse didn't light up Dave's life. He gave Insomniac's latest just two stars out of five in our review, deeming the game "satisfactory at best and frustrating at worst, and a bare-bones shooter without any personality or flair."

Of course, we're not the only outlet you can wire into. Here's a brief meta-view of the mixed review-verse discussion sparked by Fuse.

• Escapist (80/100): "Some of Fuse's flaws, like the grindy boss fights and a storyline that takes itself a little too seriously at times, can harm the experience, but it's a well built third-person shooter that's fun to play solo or on a team."
• GameSpot (70/100): "Fuse is calibrated for people to play together, designed in such a way as to be merely serviceable for solo players, but solid fun for groups of gung-ho mercs."
• Polygon (65/100): " The core of a great third-person shooter is present in Fuse. The team-based insanity offers a unique take on the genre, and Insomniac's reputation for inventive weapons and creative combat helps too. But Fuse only comes together with three or four players, and even then, the late game combat design and boring-to-fight enemies stand in its way."
• Giant Bomb (60/100): "Fuse's bland art design and overall lack of personality are disappointing in the context of that initial reveal trailer, but under the hood it's still a generally well made third-person shooter with a clear emphasis on co-op and the imaginative weapons Insomniac is so good at dreaming up. But there are too few of those weapons, and a few too many irksome issues, to lift Fuse significantly above the many, many other cover-based shooters it's competing with."
• Destructoid (40/100): "Whether it's true or not, Fuse does feel every bit like another victim of the heavily focus-tested, leader following, perpetually terrified mainstream game industry. It's every cloying and desperate element of the retail console market, brought together -- fused, if you will -- to create a factory standard example of a game that tries to be everything the hypothetical mainstream consumer drools over, and ends up as nothing remarkable...That's Fuse in a nutshell."