The results of our third annual user poll are in ...

For the third straight year, we asked our users to rank their favorite movies, games, TV shows, albums, and songs of the past 12 months. We received over 2,000 responses (a record), and the results are listed below.

Note that participants listed their five favorite titles of 2012 in each category, and we assigned a value of 5 points to each first-place vote, 4 points for second place, and so on down to 1 point for each fifth-place vote. Once again, we also asked users to name the single most "overrated" release of the year in each category, and those "winners"—determined solely by the number of votes received, rather than points—are also listed below in each section.

Movies

Christopher Nolan's third and final Batman film The Dark Knight Rises may not be a best picture contender at this year's Oscars, but it was easily the best film of 2012 with Metacritic users, scoring over 1,300 points higher than the next leading title. Just about half of all participants in our poll this year had TDKR ranked somewhere among their top five movies of the year. (Of course, if you scroll down to our list of most overrated movies, you'll see that some users held a slightly different view of the film.)

Comparing our users' favorites, below, with the year-end rankings from professional film critics reveals several similarities. Five films—Argo, Django Unchained, Lincoln, The Master, and Moonrise Kingdom—appeared in the top ten of the cumulative standings for both groups. The two films that stand out among our users' picks below are The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Prometheus, neither of which appeared on any of the 130+ critic top 10 lists that we tracked.

Games

Last week, we crowned Telltale's The Walking Dead as our official game of the year thanks to its 2012-best Metascore of 95 (for the Xbox version), and now Metacritic users have also selected it as their favorite title of the year, narrowly edging out the third game in the Mass Effect trilogy and late-2012 arrival Far Cry 3. As a whole, our users seemed to like many of the same games that critics did, with most of the year's 90+ titles appearing near the top of our users' cumulative rankings. And, much like in last year's poll, the latest Call of Duty installment led the pack of most overrated games.

Best Video Game of 2012 as Voted by Metacritic Users Game Platforms Points 1 The Walking Dead 360 95 / PC 91 / PS3 1,262 2 Mass Effect 3 360 93 / PS3 93 / PC 89 / WiiU 86 1,141 3 Far Cry 3 360 90 / PS3 90 / PC 88 1,102 4 Dishonored PC 91 / PS3 89 / 360 88 996 5 Borderlands 2 PS3 91 / 360 89 / PC 89 868 6 Halo 4 360 87 779 7 Journey PS3 92 763 8 Assassin's Creed III PS3 86 / WiiU 85 / 360 84 / PC 79 670 9 Call of Duty: Black Ops II 360 83 / PS3 83 / WiiU 82 / PC 74 356 10 Max Payne 3 PS3 87 / PC 87 / 360 86 354 11 XCOM: Enemy Unknown 360 90 / PS3 89 / PC 89 296 12 FIFA Soccer 13 360 90 / PS3 88 / PC 86 / WiiU 70 238 13 Hitman: Absolution PS3 83 / PC 80 / 360 79 185 14 Guild Wars 2 PC 90 184 15 Sleeping Dogs PS3 83 / 360 80 / PC 80 140 16 Xenoblade Chronicles Wii 92 133 17 Hotline Miami PC 85 127 18 NBA 2K13 PS3 90 / 360 88 / WiiU 85 / PC 119 19 Spec Ops: The Line PS3 77 / 360 76 / PC 76 109 20 Persona 4 Golden PS Vita 94 107

Most Overrated Game of 2012 as Voted by Metacritic Users Game Mentions 1 Call of Duty: Black Ops II 236 2 Halo 4 86 3 Mass Effect 3 65 4 The Walking Dead 49 5 Assassin's Creed III 42

TV shows

While last year's voting in the TV category could not have been closer—Breaking Bad lost out to Community by a mere two points—this year's first-place winner blew away the competition. Not only did Breaking Bad receive over twice as many points as its nearest competitor (Showtime's Homeland), the AMC drama was named on over 63% of all ballots cast. Overall, among the top 10 shows listed in the cumulative standings below, only two (Mad Men and Sherlock, neither of which aired in 2011) did not appear on last year's list. This year's highest-ranked first-year series was HBO's Girls, which placed 13th overall.

Metacritic users and TV critics enjoy many of the same shows. The standings below are remarkably similar to the critics' picks for the best shows of 2012, though Metacritic users seem to like Dexter (and CBS comedies The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother) much more than the professionals do, while the critics placed Girls much higher in their rankings.

Best Television Show of 2012 as Voted by Metacritic Users Show Points 1 Breaking Bad (AMC) 4,388 2 Homeland (Showtime) 2,031 3 Game of Thrones (HBO) 1,971 4 The Walking Dead (AMC) 1,855 5 Community (NBC) 1,599 6 Mad Men (AMC) 1,431 7 Parks and Recreation (NBC) 1,041 8 Louie (FX) 883 9 Dexter (Showtime) 719 10 Sherlock (PBS) 580 11 Boardwalk Empire (HBO) 505 12 Modern Family (ABC) 468 13 Girls (HBO) 439 14 Justified (FX) 362 15 The Big Bang Theory (CBS) 341 16 30 Rock (NBC) 302 17 American Horror Story (FX) 281 18 How I Met Your Mother (CBS) 271 19 New Girl (Fox) 253 20 Downton Abbey (PBS) 230

Most Overrated TV Show of 2012 as Voted by Metacritic Users Show Mentions 1 Homeland (Showtime) 173 2 The Walking Dead (AMC) 99 3 The Big Bang Theory (CBS) 85 4 Girls (HBO) 56 5 Modern Family (ABC) 54

Music

After dominating music critic year-end polls and receiving the highest Metascore for any album released in 2012, Frank Ocean's Channel Orange easily won over Metacritic users as well to complete the trifecta. Our users' top four overall picks were actually identical to the critics' selections this year, and it is not until the users' #10 pick—Babel by Mumford & Sons—that we find an album that doesn't place among the critics' top 30 selections.

Most Overrated Album of 2012 as Voted by Metacritic Users Album/Artist Mentions 1 92 Channel Orange by Frank Ocean 155 2 77 Red by Taylor Swift 70 3 91 good kid, m.A.A.d. city by Kendrick Lamar 49 4 63 Babel by Mumford & Sons 36 5 68 Believe by Justin Bieber 35

Frank Ocean didn't just dominate the album voting; he also accounted for three of our users' top five songs of the year. Also placing in the top 10 is PSY's international hit "Gangnam Style." We think there might be a video for that one on YouTube.

Best Song of 2012 as Voted by Metacritic Users Song/Artist Listen Watch Points 1 "Pyramids" by Frank Ocean

from the album Channel Ocean Spotify YouTube 572 2 "Thinkin Bout You" by Frank Ocean

from the album Channel Ocean Spotify YouTube 249 3 "The House that Heaven Built" by Japandroids

from the album Celebration Rock Spotify YouTube 201 4 "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye feat. Kimbra

from the album Making Mirrors Spotify YouTube 186 5 "Bad Religion" by Frank Ocean

from the album Channel Ocean Spotify 178 6 "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen

from the album Kiss Spotify YouTube 169 7 "Gangnam Style" by PSY

from the album PSY 6 (Six Rules), Part 1 Spotify YouTube 168 8 "Skyfall" by Adele

from the single "Skyfall" YouTube 161 9 "Yet Again" by Grizzly Bear

from the album Shields Spotify YouTube 151 10 "Some Nights" by Fun.

from the album Some Nights Spotify YouTube 147

How did you do?

What do you think of the consensus picks of your fellow users? Let us know in the comments section below, and don't forget to visit our Best of 2012 section for all of our year-end coverage.