Your Single Biggest Disappointment Gaming Wise.

[Bailos]

My major disappointments were anything Peter Molyneux's touched in the last ten years. I loved Black and White and Fable, but after that? Meh.

It didn't help that that's when I first started following videogame news, and heard all of his boasts and expectations.

 

[sanquin]

Spore: The game was supposed to be about full on development from bacteria to galaxy dominating species. What did we get? A 'grab the bubbles' minigame, a short easy survival/collection game, a short basic stategy game, and then a galaxy that's full of...what, 10 different copy/pasted races which will either attack you or want to be friends with you? And then after a few reinstalls I couldn't even play my game any more! I had fun for a while. Getting to the stage where you can freely roam the galaxy with a decent ship/tools/weapons is nice. But god what a disappointment in the end.

It has to be mentioned: Mass Effect 3. I loved the game. I loved all of the missions for the side characters. I loved most of the story. But that ending. Before ME3 I thought it impossible for an ending to be so bad that it would ruin an otherwise awesome game for me. It proved me wrong.

 

[Whispering Cynic]

Mass Effect 2. The first ME was amazing, despite its shortcomings it's one of my all time favorite games. So I naturally pre-ordered ME2 as soon as possible, because Bioware was one of the very few companies I trusted at the time enough to do something so foolish. In a way, I'm grateful for the disappointment it ultimately brought me. It reminded me that nothing and no one should be fully trusted. After ME2 I fully expected Bioware to fuck ME3 up somehow, so when that happened I was not disappointed, only somewhat surprised by how big that screw up turned out to be.

And an honorable mention to the disgrace that is Command&Conquer 4. No need to explain this one, anyone who liked the previous C&C games will know what I mean.

 

[THM]

No mate, they didn't just get a BAFTA, they got game of the year

Ah, I see. Guess that means the folks at BAFTA aren't completely crazy.

 

[Sarge034]

I wasn't sure what I was going to say as I was reading through the comments, but then I saw someone mention Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. I had blocked that pain from my memory. :'( Anyway, I'd call it my biggest disappointment because I thought it was going to bring together all of my ideas for a "perfect" zombie game. Huge hoards of zombies (so one hit kill headshots could be a thing), tactical co-op, open world exploration/ non-linier progression, and more. And it, well, it certainly wasn't any of that. To be completely frank that's why I scoff at the idea of there being too many zombie games. Yes there are a lot of them, but they are all so similar that we haven't realized the genre's full potential. In related news, Dead Island. :""(

 

[Danny Dowling]

No mate, they didn't just get a BAFTA, they got game of the year

Ah, I see. Guess that means the folks at BAFTA aren't completely crazy.

I play Destiny, but no way is it GOTY. Monument Valley won the most awards out of the GOTY nominees and didn't win, but even so Shadow of Mordor, Dragon Age and Mario Kart 8 are all better than Destiny. Out of all the games, it was also the only one Total Biscuit said absolutely nothing about... because he saw nothing positive to say.

 

[FPLOON]

I wasn't sure what I was going to say as I was reading through the comments, but then I saw someone mention Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. I had blocked that pain from my memory. :'(

I'm so sorry, dood... But, that one dude at GameStop made it look so interesting... and I had the money at the time to pre-order the Collector's Edition... and I love buying Collector's Edition in general... Glob, I'm such a terrible person... :'(

 

[Chester Rabbit]

I'm sure i have said this before in a similar thread but hey who doesn't like venting.

I'll give the short version this time though.

Mortal Kombat Armageddon - It was Supposed to be a giant epic love letter to the series that concluded all plot threads and wiped the slate clean for a new chapter in MK. It did none of that. It had next to no story. No character bios. no closure.

Mortal Kombat vs DC: waiting 3 years for the follow up to Armageddon for NRS to deliver this grand new chapter in MK. Which they had been hyping up all this time. I wake up at 5 am and see Sub-Zero staring down Batman. My reaction. "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU-"

Fable 2: What was supposed to be bigger than the first game. Was the first game only with less features and a less engaging world.
Fabl was my first RPG. So seeing it go to the dogs was pretty sad

Now I have one that is a little odd.

Mass Effect 3: BUT! It's not for the reasons some of you might think while you are nodding your head seeing me mention Mass Effect 3.

I loved Mass Effect 3 the whole way through. When I played it, it was complete. Meaning I experienced it will all the DLC and the fixed ending. And I liked the ending.

What is disappointing to me about ME3. Is the amount of animosity it attracts. And that no one can mention it without starting a riot of people saying how it is the worst thing ever. How it is the worst game of the trilogy ect.
It's just heart breaking to see. And sad that I feel like I can't openly express my fondness for the game without having someone give me an earful for why it is the worst thing to happen since the holocaust and why I am stupid for liking it.

 

[ExDeath730]

As a lot of people on ths thread, Mass Effect 3 really was...Bad, but not my biggest disappointment. The last 15 minutes of that game, were as terrible as the bike level of Battletoads Vs. Double Dragon, but when one was because of how absurd the difficulty was, in ME3 is just how cringe worthy and obtuse the entire ending is. I actually consider that shooting that stupid IA and dyine standing is the good ending of that game, at least you lost on your terms instead of winning in the terms of the enemy.

After i finished that game, i really was...Speechless for about half a hour, i just lay down in bed and was like "WTF just happened?". Really, i coudn't believe how bad that was, but, alas...My biggest disappointment is Rome 2 - Total War.

Oh my god, where to start? First, let me say that i loved the first Rome, when i played it, i remember how it changed my entire perspectve about how a strategy/tactics game should be. I loved the big battles, loved how with superior tactics you could beat raw numbers, i liked how each faction had personality, and the expansion? I still remember fondly my campaingns with the Franks and the Sarmatians, and there was the mods. Rome Total Realism and Europa Barbarorum are amazing, the second one was made with such care, that a history buff like me would sometimes spend some time just reading about stuff, the units, the buildings, government types.

When Rome 2 was announced, the trailers, the interviews, everything made the game look just amazing, and i drank the cool aid. Bought the thing on pre-order, and when playing, i still remember how i started with the Romans (i was always awesome with the Parthians, but i liked the versatile infantry of the Romans, and balanced army), so the first battle started and it was horrible, it was 2 or 3 minutes, the engagement was pathetic, there was virtually no battle lines, the thing just turned into a chaotic melee that it's just not how romans fight.

The features didn't help, how they removed a lot of things that make the other games interesting, it was terrible, and i didn't even had the stomach to finish anything, after that i swore to never buy anything from Sega/CA again until they use another engine for a Total War game, and not this Warscape shit, and i'm keeping this promisse.

 

[step1999]

Worth mentioning Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel as well.
First game was among my favorite games ever. Then the second one came along and improved on everything. I was sceptical over BTPS since it had another developer but I figured that more of the same couldn't be bad.
How wrong I was...

Could you expand on why it disappointed you? As someone who likes all the BL games and thinks BLPS is actually the best one (particularly due to it's awesome action skills and skill trees, the only time the other game's skill trees were as good was with Krieg's middle tree and Gaige's Anarchy tree.) (And the Grinder was a genius idea.) (And lasers, slams and cryo are all really fun to use) (And I like brackets ) As far as I can tell, the only bad part of BLPS was the endgame, which I never cared for in BL anyway so... (oh, and while I haven't bought it, I've heard the Holodome is meant to suck.)

 

[marioandsonic]

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006.

Do I really need to explain this one?

Instead of celebrating the series's 15th anniversary, it brought a bomb to the celebration party and took out everything within a mile radius.

 

[aozgolo]

I've had plenty of gaming disappointments but it's really hard to pinpoint one specifically that tops the rest, I don't usually hold grudges.

Maybe the fact that I bought so heavily into Square Enix's big push for getting Dragon Quest to western audiences only to have them back out without a single word. I bought Dragon Quest VIII, IV, V, VI, and IX and even the strategy guides for them, I was so excited, and even though I knew Dragon Quest X was going to be a MMO I was kind of okay with that, I was willing to go for it, but... it never came, and by now it's well past ever expecting it to come, and I am hesitant at this point if we'll see any actual console or handheld releases for Dragon Quest games anymore. I know they are doing a lot of mobile ports but it's certainly not what I come to expect or hope for from them.

Other recent disappointments:

-Dragons Dogma sequel.... as a F2P MMO
-Life is Feudal: Your Own just being very.... lackluster and boring
-Big Huge Games (makers of Kingdoms of Amalur) going belly up.
-The Witcher games: I love the concept, the story, the setting, the characters but every single time I try to play I don't get anywhere because it bores me to tears, I didn't learn my lesson though, still buying the third one.
-Divinity: Dragon Commander just being.... mediocre in every regards.

 

[Sarge034]

I wasn't sure what I was going to say as I was reading through the comments, but then I saw someone mention Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. I had blocked that pain from my memory. :'(

I'm so sorry, dood... But, that one dude at GameStop made it look so interesting... and I had the money at the time to pre-order the Collector's Edition... and I love buying Collector's Edition in general... Glob, I'm such a terrible person... :'(

Didn't even take the guy at gamestop for me. Them trailers were freaking awesome. Complete lies, but awesome.

 

[Iwata]

I know a lot of people love it, but... "Freelancer".

I am a HUGE Chris Roberts fan. Wing Commander were my favourite games when I was a kid. Then Starlancer came out, and it felt like Wing Commander all over again.

Then they announced Freelancer. I was overhyped for a great sequel to a game with a kick-ass story and a really cool setting!

So imagine my disappointment when the game starts by saying that despite all your efforts in the first game, you lost the war, oh, and it's now a thousand years later and nothing from the previous game matters. In addition to that, no more carrier-based mission, no more Wing Commander-style gameplay, no more cool ships (I REALLY hate the look of the Freelancer ships), etc.

If I had not played Starlancer before, I might have enjoyed Freelancer. As it is, it felt like a slap in the face to the (admittedly few) fans of the first game.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Mass Effect, wait for it, 2.

We went from Mass Effect 1's RPG setup, to ME2's stripped down cover based shooter, global cooldowns on powers, heatsink based ammo, and railroaded in to joining a terrorist organisation. I think the most annoying thing (overall) is them hitting the Relationship Reset button every damn game. There is no logical reason for that.

 

[barbzilla]

For me, Diablo 3. They later made it into a somewhat passable arpg, but I still don't feel like I'm playing Diablo (mostly due to the character mechanics). I can handle not being able to make builds like before, since we have limited skill slots to make a Guildwars like build, and we also have paragon points now to give us some "stat" leveling. However, I can not stand said skills being linked to the weapon damage for the purposes of skill damage. This is why previous leveling systems in Diablo were superior. It meant that you now had to focus on a few stats that you absolutely had to have with every build on that character. Gone are the days of making mismatched builds, bardarians, ect. And these are just the issues left with it today.

When the game first came out, there were terrible server issues combined with an always online game design. The legendaries (basically uniques from 1 and 2 if you haven't played 3 yet) were boring and added nothing to the character's play style (in fact, most of the time, legendaries were completely useless). The drop system was completely laughable, and led to forced interaction with the auction house (or expect to spend 10x the amount of time in each area to get properly equipped for the next area). The character imbalance was also quite noticeable, and swiftly followed by some absolutely horrible balance patches that pretty much yo-yo'd every character from being OP to UP with the exception of the Barbarian (who stayed OP until Jay Wilson left).

The part that really killed me though, is this was the first game I had pre-ordered in years since I had gotten tired of developers promising something that quickly changed into something else, and it is the last pre-order I have made (and plan to make). Now I typically wait a week at bare minimum before I pick a game up, and often I wait until the first series of patches have made the game into what I would consider an acceptable release state (though I do pick up some early access games from time to time, but that is another story).

 

[Valkrex]

Metroid: Other M.

I'm a huge Metroid fan, and I've played nearly every Metroid game ever released. Except Metroid 2 since finding it was next to impossible for years, and I can't quite justify paying for it on my 3DS because college is expensive. I even got 100% item AND logbook completion in all three Metroid Prime games. I don't do shit like that often, if ever, so this should go to show how much I love this series.

Gameplay-wise I didn't have too much to complain about in Other M. It took getting used to, but once you got the hang of switching in and out of first person view and learning the dodge system, the gameplay was actually a lot of fun with some pretty well done levels and boss fights. The energy and missile systems were done in a new way that I actually rather liked, and exploring this massive space station felt very much like a melding of the Metroid Prime style first person games and the classic side-scrollers.


But the story... good god the story and the portrayal of Samus was downright criminally bad and caused me and all of my friends who love the Metroid series to delcare it non-canon in our eyes. I probably don't even need to go into why as its been done to death, but holy hell this game's story was just awful. It never happened. It doesn't exist to me, and the true Samus that we all know and love never had this mess of game plot dropped on her.

 

[Briantb]

Like many others have already said, Mass Effect 3 takes the cake. The ending was the biggest insult I have ever suffered as a gamer. After investing so much time and love into the franchise it felt like a slap in the face. I've mostly reconciled it, but I will never forget how I felt the first time I beat the game

I'm much the same, I started out playing on PC switched over to console with the ps3 release of ME and ME2, played through both prior to ME3 release and even took a few days off work to play ME3 only to get completely depressed and annoyed at ME3 ending. The extended ending DLC isn't any better ether.

 

[raeior]

So many games to choose from. DA:I, ME3, Spore, Dungeons.
Though I guess my biggest disappointment is still X Rebirth. I expected it to be buggy. All of Egosoft's games have been buggy as hell on release. I still preordered the collectors edition because I love that series and everything they told beforehand sounded interesting. Also there is simply no game that is comparable to the X series. Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous are nice, but they have a completely differend scope. So I preordered it, hoping that this could fix a lot of the long standing problems with the engine (path finding being one of the biggest problems) since they developed a new one for Rebirth.
Little did I know that they would turn a series with a pretty small but loyal fanbase into some weird consolified shooter in space. They even managed to make the UI worse! I never thought that would be possible! Also the path finding is so broken that they "fixed" it by simply deactivating collision damage. The whole economy is a joke, all stations look the same, every NPC looks like he/she is 90 years old...
They are still patching it but I don't expect it to ever become a good game.

 

[RealRT]

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
What I expected - the expansion and building upon what made the first game great - huge environments with the feel of epic. A story with a more defined and distinguished main character. For Lords of Shadow to become the new Legacy of Kain
What I got - nonsensical story, atrocious stealth sections, lame ending, Dracula being far too bland to be interesting. The combat, bosses and castle sections were good though. Still proves that Legacy of Kain is irreplaceable.
Mass Effect 3
What I expected - for it to replace ME2 for me as ME2 replaced ME1 (and I only really started LOVING ME with ME2), all build ups to pay off, an epic conclusion with all my favorites coming back and epic music all around.
What I got - that ending, lame as fuck character sidequests, lame as fuck main theme.
RAGE
What I expected - id Software to come back to the FPS throne.
What I got - where the heck is my third act of the game?
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
What I expected - Mass Effect with aliens in 1950s
What I got - Mass Effect with aliens in 1950s. With atrocious companion AI that makes it nigh unplayable.
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
What I expected - even better platforming, even better graphics, even better music, even better combat, the Dark Prince being cool, the game that combines the strengths of Sands of Time with the strengths of Warrior Within
What I got - worse platforming, laughable graphics, lame music, lame combat, the Dark Prince being lame, the game that panders to Sands of Time fans like crazy while having none of its charm or brilliance AND losing all the perks of Warrior Within in the process.

Finally, I got Painkiller Hell & Damnation on the PS3...the game runs like absolute Ass. It's fun when it's working but most of the time it runs at about 10FPS for me and just feels incredibly unresponsive. The first time I played this was on the original freaking Xbox for crying out loud, how is that one the better version?! Oh well, gotta get the PC version I guess.

Get the PC version on a Steam sale with the DLCs. They get sales fairly often and the discounts are pretty big.