Hidden object games (HOGs) often take us under the sea, up among the clouds, or deep into mossy ruins. In fact, it's rare to come across a HOG that doesn't feature beautiful, calming hidden object scenes. It makes sense: It's difficult for a HOG to innovate, so the games' creators strive to draw the prettiest pictures. Criminal Case for Facebook, however, crosses out the rainbows and unicorns with a big bloody "X" and opts for gristly, even disturbing images of crime scenes. While the change is welcome (depending on how morbid you are), the game itself is intolerably slow.
There's an endless variety of business management sims to play on Facebook, so it's quite an achievement when a developer comes up with a genuinely novel twist on the formula. My Shops has you trying to manage an ever-increasing variety of shops located on a single avenue, instead of endlessly micromanaging a single store. This is a very intuitive way to change up the formula, but surprisingly, there's very little on Facebook right now that really plays the way My Shops does. Some elements of typical timer-driven sim play are there, but there's also a lot of strategy and even some action.