Universal did not retain the rights to the Bethesda version. Amy Manson and Agleya Gumnerova were then confirmed to have been cast in the role. Dark's depiction as Doomguy received negative criticism from fans. Cultural impact Reception In 2009, GameDaily included the Doom Marine on its list of "ten game heroes who fail at the simple stuff" for his inability to look up and down in the original series. UGO Networks ranked the Marine fourth on its 2012's list of best silent protagonists in video games, noting his courage to continue in silence even when faced with Hell's army. In 2013, Complex ranked the Doom Marine at number 16 on its list of the greatest soldiers in video games for being "the original video game space marine" and "one of the classic silent protagonists". Both CraveOnline and VGRC ranked the Marine the fifth most "badass" male character in the video game's history. Kirk McKeand of VG247 described Doomguy as "Jesus with a super shotgun". David Houghton of GamesRadar claimed that Doomguy is the smartest player character around, even with fistbumps, violence and zero dialogue. In 2021, Rachel Weber of GamesRadar ranked him as 47th iconic video game character. The Doom Marine's 2016 incarnation has received special acclaim for its characterization and how the game presents the player character as a representation of the player playing Doom: writing for GamesRadar, David Houghton called the presentation "incidental, not explicit", which allows the players to immerse completely in the character. Christian Donlan writing for Eurogamer theorised that "the guy in Doom is playing Doom", and explained that the main character's impatience with exposition is analogous to "the temporary frustration of being inside Doom while not being able to play Doom". In his column Extra Punctuation Ben Croshaw wrote that the game "establishes the player character as someone who doesn't give a flake of dried Marmite for the larger context, and only cares about ridding the planet of demons. Which is hopefully representative of the player's motivation." Additional praise was given for the subtlety of Doomguy's expressions: Jim Sterling noted that both the "glory kill" moves and additional pieces of animation "reinforce his consistent sense of irreverence", Sterling, along with a number of other reviewers including Houghton, Conlan, and Croshaw from Zero Punctuation noted the initial moment of the game with Doomguy throwing away a communications monitor while a mission briefing plays as a