I have to agree with Halo 2, as someone else mentioned earlier. Seriously, I know the second game in a known trilogy is generally going to have some kind of cliffhanger ending to get people amped up for the threequel, I mean you're almost guaranteed that anyone that played the second game is going to want to play the third one just to see the end by going with such a strategy, but there are better ways to do it. Mass Effect 2 had a competent ending, you accomplished something big and it felt like it mattered, and then of course we are shown that the real battle against the Reapers is nearly at our doorstep. A lot of games have this problem, but Halo 2 felt particularly abrupt.
Hey, speaking of abrupt endings, can I also ***** about Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2? Spoiler free, of course. The ending is, as I mentioned, abrupt. It's odd because the first Castlevania: Lords of Shadow game was pretty long, had a good intro and a good wrap-up, although the after-credits ending was an odd twist that you had to play DLC to make sense of. Regardless, it was still way more competent than it's sequel. Mirror of Fate also introduces a lot of new plot lines, all of which get too wrapped up in a completely unsatisfying manner (specifically the Toy Maker), compounding with the abrupt, hashed together ending and creating an utter sense of "lot of drum-roll for nothing." As someone that actually liked this new direction in the series, I feel especially let down for investing in it. Mercurysteam won't be making any more Castlevania games so sometimes I wonder if the entire end of that game was them saying "fuck it, we give up." I mean...
Okay, Spoilers:
The entire game is centered around helping Death (Zobek) hunt down the acolyte's of Satan to stop them from summoning him, which is a problem for Death and Dracula, since Dracula has lost his power. But they think Dracula is dead, so they wait 1000 years and start to summon Satan. Turns out the whole thing was an Ocean's 11-style plot between Alucard and Dracula to draw both Death and Satan out into the open so he can kill them both. The ENTIRE game we are leading up to the fight with Satan. He's more powerful than us now, we might not win. What happens when Satan finally appears? He possesses Alucard and fights you. And that is it. That's the final battle. Satan himself doesn't even fight you, you just fight a ridiculously easy boss battle against Alucard with Satan's voice actor.
So yeah. Thanks for letting me down, Mercurysteam. It'll be difficult to want to argue in favor of your work in the future.