How can a series get knacked up so spectacularly?

Games love sequels. And gamers love sequels.

You always know that they're going to build on what was excellent about the first one, give you more stuff to do and take out the crap people didn't like. You don't have to go through the rigmarole of working out how to play the game and can just dive straight in.

Some examples of a sequel where the previous was great but the second has just made it better:

God Of War
Tony Hawks
Grand Theft Auto
Gran Tourismo
Forza
Tekken

I could go on. Occasionally some games lose their way a little throughout the series like Tony Hawk and Tomb Raider but the general rule is a game gets better as they refine it through the series.

This isn't the case with Def Jam Icon. I've been trying to get hold of this game since i first got a 360 and it was the first demo i downloaded. Def Jam Fight for NY was fantastic, it was so brutal, had great killer moves and the interaction with the environment was well done. So you'd think the first Def Jam game for the next-gen console would be really really good.

It's really really good if you're not bothered about finishing moves, hitting people when they're down, cohesive fighting moves, running towards your opponent or enjoying the game at all.

It does have excellent graphics and the characters look really beat up after a while with dust and rips to their clothes and blood down the face but that's all the praise i've got for it. Nothing much else. It just reminds me of Rise of the Robots on the Amiga, it was a pretty game but blimey, it was a shit fighter.

I really wanted to like it but i just can't, it's so damn boring. There's a total of 11 moves you can do and they get very tedious very quickly. When i play a Def Jam game i want to be able to glass them, smack them over the head with a 2x4, pick them up off the floor and smash my knee into their teeth. If you want to do the same, gimme a boomshakalaka (or whatever those gentlemen on the 'street' say) and stick in Fight for NY into your PS2 coz it's a hell of a lot better than Icon.

And the 'cool new feature' of being able to scratch the music playing at the time with the left trigger and right stick is just pointless and wank.