We'll just have to agree to disagree on just about all of their games except for BL2. Opposing Force and Decay are two of my favorite games in the Half-Life series. And Brothers in Arms is one of the best WWII-class shooter series ever. Borderlands was a very successful attempt at a loot-driven shooter. Just suffered from weak story elements. But, I think the RPG mechanics and beautiful visuals made up for it. I'm not one for graphics comparisons, but I just love the unique and comic-book-like art style of the Borderlands games. I don't really see how anyone outside of the industry could know that much about their business practices. From what I can see, video game journalists are wildly speculating on what happened during the A:CM development process based on the testimony of one former Gearbox developer who supposedly posted on a reddit forum. Obviously, I'm not privy to anything that goes on at Gearbox internally and I haven't observed a long enough track record of poor product execution to pass judgment on their business. Not saying you're wrong or that I'm right. I'm just not going to hop on the hate train because of one bad game.

I only like them for their port in Halo PC.

colonial marines is not a mediocre game

I liked Brothers in Arms. Not sure what else they've done though.