Videogames based on popular TV shows don't really have to do much to be successful. Pick an appropriate genre, insert set dressings from the show, customize facial hair (or lack thereof) for each rendered character, and, most-importantly, have the show's cast provide the voice-overs for their in-game likenesses and poof!, "Show X: The Game" is born.

And that's pretty much the case with The Shield: The Game, a mostly-hopeless, totally derivative, butcher and hack-job of a title in the already desperately-underachieving brawling/shooter vein with no redemptive qualities save for the voice of Michael Chiklis and friends (no Glenn Close nor Forest Whitacker, mind you) and a gritty-looking box with his anti-hero likeness and the show's cult-lauded logo on the cover.

People will buy it. Next, they'll hate it.