Grand Theft Auto had a terrible contest, but GTA3 is exempt from this criticism. All contest long people postulated 3 might be the strongest in the series, and I think they might be right. At least for this contest. When you think "Game of the Decade", not many games deserve that type of respect more than GTA3. So when GTA3 went out and had a pretty good match against the heavy favorite Half-Life 2, it wasn't a major surprise. Even people who despise the GTA series respect 3, and that respect probably outweighed the anti-votes GTA gets in every match.