Best-selling PC download game of the week: 'Battlefield: Bad Company 2' keeps challengers at bay

(All rights reserved - Square Enix)

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 once again tops the Steam Network charts for downloadable PC games, maintaining its position for the week of March 22-28, holding off Left 4 Dead 2's cut-price surge and Just Cause 2's chaotic open world playpen of destruction.

Left 4 Dead 2 has a temporary 50 percent price cut to thank for its top ten resurrection, though given its success in 2009 and the brand's strong following it's difficult to imagine that many people who want it don't yet own it. The fast-paced, tense game is all about the survivors of a zombie apocalypse working together to find safety, and while the characters differ slightly from those in the first game, there is room for some plot overlap between the two.

By contrast, Just Cause 2 didn't have as good a predecessor as Left 4 Dead to rely upon. Just Cause had obvious potential, but lacked the polish needed to make it essential. Just Cause 2 seems to have taken what was good about the first game and buffed it until it shone with the power of a thousand suns - or at least, a thousand exploding petrol stations.

The game's plot isn't all that important, thinly veiled excuse that it is for counter-terrorist covert operative Rico Rodriguez to barrel around an island's worth of vehicles, baddies, planes, explosive canisters used as sky rockets, and almost endless opportunities to set up action-comedy sequences courtesy of a fantastically versatile grappling hook and a fondness for sky-diving - with or without parachute eventually deployed.

Torchlight, first available as a download-only game before being released in retail stores in North America and finally now in Europe, was the subject of a 1/3-off weekend promotion which helped it hurtle back into the top 10.

01) Battlefield: Bad Company 2
02) Left 4 Dead 2
03) Just Cause 2
04) Torchlight
05) Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight
06) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
07) The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom - Gold Edition
08) Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Chaos Rising
09) Dragon Age: Origins Awakening
10) Mount & Blade: Warband
Chart positions reflect total revenue gained by the Steam Network.