Uncharted 2 is one of the most celebrated games of 2009, not just on the PlayStation but across all platforms. Its Metacritic page is like a freight train hauling nothing but “100” boxcars. I am surrounded by video game playing peers who adore it and encourage me to join them in the multiplayer mode.

There's only one catch. I think I hate this game.

To be fair, I never saw the appeal of the first game. I tried the demo, jumped around in the jungle before facing off against some kind of mad superhumans who shrugged off gunshots like so many mosquito bites. I grew tired of emptying entire clips into random henchmen, so I figured if I found the demo tedious there was no way I could enjoy an entire game like that.

When the sequel uniformly impressed the game critics and supposedly heralded a brand new era of storytelling in games, I figured they had improved on the failings of the original. I borrowed the game from a friend (who spoke very highly of it) and gave it a try.

I enjoyed the cinematic opening action sequence of scaling a train as it slid off of a cliff, even though I inexplicably died during the climb. I enjoyed the cut scenes which established the plot as Nathan Drake found himself a predicament far removed from the circumstances in which the crooks' plan was hatched.

Then the second chapter started, and I began to sour on the game immediately. Having played Batman Arkham Asylum just a few months ago, I found the stealth gameplay in Uncharted 2 to be unacceptably awkward. Any mistakes led to a restart. I got stuck on a particularly sticky point that forced me to look up a solution online. When I complained about this to a friend, he told me to “stick with it” because “the game opens up after that.”

When I finally reached the goal and the alarm was triggered during the cutscene (no spoilers), I died several times trying to escape the museum. Eventually I found the exit and I was promptly arrested, which begs the question what was the point of the escape sequence I had to attempt over and over again?

Now in an extremely bad mood, I begin the third chapter in another jungle. And sure enough, I’m firing round after round into hired thugs who must have just arrived from Krypton. Amazingly, these men of steel are no match for my fists, but that’s only when I manage to get in close. Mostly they riddle me with bullets as I try to take cover behind the smallest crates I’ve ever seen in a video game.

When I again complain to my friend, he tells me to play through two more chapters before making any judgements.

But enough is enough. When I rented The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I turned it off after an hour because the movie was going nowhere and taking forever to get there. I’ve put at least two or three hours into Uncharted 2 and I find it just as intolerable as elderly man-child Brad Pitt becoming slightly less old. I realize that I gave Ben Button more of a chance percentage-wise since one hour of that movie is a third (seriously!) of its total run time, whereas three hours of a video game is probably less than a tenth of the entire game, but three hours is still three damn hours.

My gaming time is very valuable. I don’t play games to “kill time” on a rainy day, I have to choose between playing games or getting eight hours of sleep. I find it hard to believe that three hours is an insufficient sample size to experience the impassioned joy of Uncharted 2 that seems to touch every other gamer on the internet (aside from Yahtzee).

At this point I’m not sure how Uncharted 2 can redeem itself. The stealth is bad, the platforming isn’t much fun, the guns are too weak, and/or the enemies are too strong. If you’ll forgive me for speculating, all of the reviews praised the story but how good can it really be? So far I’ve seen nothing but cliches mixed with a few admittedly clever one-liners. Lost treasure? Fortune and glory? I’ve seen that movie before many, many times, and Nathan Drake is no Indy.

So I have a choice to make. Do I continue to plod ahead in this tedium and hope that some magical transformation will validate the time I’ve wasted thus far, or I do I return this dreck, shrug my shoulders at the rest of the world and walk away? How many chances does one game deserve, especially this time of year when I have so many alternatives? I’ve got angels to kill, mercenaries to fight, caves to spelunk and I’m even exploring Dracula’s Castle for old time’s sake. Can Nathan Drake really compete with all that?

Daniel Feit was born in New York but now lives in Japan. Follow him on Twitter @feitclub or visit his blog, feitclub.com