Review of a Gaming Website

Hello.

I'm building a gaming website with a few other developers. I'm not much of a designer, so I had a friend who is good with Photoshop create a design for me, and then I just marked it up and put it in place on the website. It looked good when I first saw it a few months ago, but now, I don't think it's really that good of a design anymore. Keep in mind, it's a design for a gaming website that will include game reviews, news, forums, and all that stuff. Also, the site only contains the design and nothing else, just some test content boxes so you can view the mainframe of the design. So please just evaluate the design for me. I need to see if my friend's design is really as bad as I think it is, or if I'm just too critical of it.

Here is the link to the website. (http://www.opticgamer.com) Please, don't hold back on the criticism, because I am considering getting someone else to make a new design for us and I want to see if you feel the same way.

Thank you for your time.

Well, without content, it's not really easy to say how the site looks like.

dude, it is just a test page. no content .and why would you do that? :confused:

Even on a test page, some lorem ipsum would do wonders.

I'd say that it does look slightly amateur. There's something about the design that isn't quite 'clean' enough, and the graphics look a little as though someone has created blocks, randomised a layer style and applied it to all in various colours.

The layout is okay and I like the way each of the buttons change colour, but they're a bit vibrant. I'd suggest steering towards maybe, slightly darker colours. For those rollovers. you want them to look like rollovers, but you don't need them taking over the site.

Other than that, it looks okay