Grumblecakes.

So a quick search of the blogosphere shows that everyone is wetting themselves over the new Xbox Live Experience.

Yeah. Um. Huh?

I mean, yes, the new features are great - Netflix on demand, easier party systems, and the community games stuff. Yay. Fine.

My biggest problem is the look and feel of the dashboard. For one thing, forcing me to create a Mii-knockoff avatar is ridiculous. I mean, yeah, I did it, and she looks exactly like me, (except with fangs). But why? If I wanted to dick around with a cutesy-wutesy avatar of myself, I'd turn on my fucking Wii!

To make it even more jarring, I deliberately chose a grim, urban dystopia for my dashboard theme. So now when I log on, there's a roly-poly avatar of me admiring her shoes and looking coquettish, except she appears to be dropped into a set from Blade Runner.

And the other problem I have is that the dashboard now seems to be chock full of advertisements. The new interface has about eight menus, including Spotlight (on things you can buy), Game Marketplace, Video Marketplace, and Inside Xbox (added content for things you can buy). It's also very graphic-heavy, so to see your gaming acheivements, you have to flip through pictures of the covers of the games. It just feels very much like living inside a flier for Target or something.

Anyway, rant over. What did you guys think?