Biggest Disappointment in Gaming 2013

I generally liked it, but those giant QTE boss battles were just some of the worst gameplay experiences I've ever had.

I could not believe the tail a person/ship missions were so frequent and it really changed my opinion on AC IV. I love the pirate settings but those missions were dreadful, i hope the user feedback stuff is legit and they actually use it.

Honestly, I was only disappointed that Arkham: Origins was a glitch ridden mess. The gameplay and story aside, the technical issues marred this game so hard for me.

The Cave made me respect Alex Navarro's editorial opinion a lot more. I was super pumped for the game, but when I saw Alex give it a 3 star score, I figured "he probably just doesn't like adventure games that much." and bought it anyways. Upon being tremendously let down, I went back and saw nearly every one of my problems with the game cited in Alex's review. In short, I'm sorry I doubted you, @alex.

On the subject, The Cave confirmed my suspicions brought on by DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue of just how much Ron Gilbert needs Tim Schafer.

I've been pretty disappointed by Tomb Raider considering all the great things I heard about it, post-release. I've probably played 4 or 5 hours and it hasn't grabbed me yet, which probably means that I should stop.

Battlefield 4!!

I'm going to go with Dead Space 3. I'm not even upset about the action-y focus of it because after 2 games of one dude fighting the same shit, of course he's not going to have the same apprehension diving into these situations. The bigger problem is just that it isn't very exciting in how it goes about it. It never came close to the highs of either of the previous games and was an unsatisfying experience

I'm Still disappointed with Diablo 3...

SimCity and The Cave were pretty big let downs.

SimCity.

Batman Arkham Origins for me. I've started it and found myself with no desire to go back to it.

I was disappointed in God of War: Ascension, I didn't like the way they changed the combat and it felt kind of lifeless and unsatisfying. Also Bioshock Infinite, mainly because it was spoiled for me. I just finished it yesterday, but when it first came out I was looking on Amazon to see how the PS3 version came out and there was a thread title with the ending spoiler. I hoped that it was wrong, or I would forget it by the time I played it, but nope.

Dead Space 3 was a bummer..they basically took the last few stages of DS2, where tension is supposedly derived from having a million enemies thrown at you, and made it the whole game...well at least as far as I got. The whole 'push button, release monsters' formula got old for me and those damn, annoying regen necromorphs were brought back early on. I like the franchise but if EA ever decides to bring it back, I hope it's a return to survival horror-ish roots.

SimCity pretty much has to be at the top. High expectations, lots of hype, beloved series. And we get broken design, terrible launch, and tiny cities.

Outside of that, GTAV was a disappointment for me. I liked some of the characters, but the world was boring, driving around got tedious, and most of the missions just weren't fun. Too many advances have been made by other open world games for Rockstar to just keep ignoring them. Will be interesting how it's handled in GOTY, since I think Jeff was the only one who really liked the game. Also GTA Online was a big bummer, though I'm not sure how everyone got hyped for it.

There's lots of next gen sadness, but getting excited about launch titles is a fools errand. Seeing Forza get microtransactioned to death and Crimson Dragon shit all over Panzer Dragoon were particularly disappointing though.

SimCity is the obvious answer here, but for me it had to be GTA V.

Its weird because I enjoyed the game overall, but I was constantly going "This is it? Really?" and the more I think back to it the more I feel bummed out about it. There was just so much wasted potential. You can clearly see what they were going for, and when they had he decision to do the "right" thing or the "wrong" thing they almost always chose the wrong way. Contrast that to Saints Row IV which I played right before GTA V and this becomes even more apparent. Saints Row IV is a game that did everything right and just makes everything GTA V did wrong that much more obvious. Rockstar needs to take a long, hard look at where games are before they release another one. They live in a GTA bubble and that shit is getting old pretty fast.

Game-wise, there were many disappointments, but none so much as SimCity.

Un-game-wise, I'd have to say that the Xbox One launch. The bad interface, imperfect voice controls, and microtransactions being constantly in your face really bummed me out. Not to say that they might fix these issues later on, but it's a current let down for 2013.

@furiouscabbage said:

I second this. I was really looking forward to CoH 2 and found very little of what made me love the series.

That said, I didn't play SimCity, but definitely frowned hard at it from afar.

Grand Theft Auto V. Not that it isn't a great game, but it didn't blow me away like I had expected. Lots of little things rubbed me wrong (inconvenient fast travel, shitty flight controls, the cordoning off of hunting into a dedicated side activity as opposed to an always on free form activity, dull radio stations, etc.) and the storytelling felt muddled. It also hit me at a really weird time in my personal life, so it also has a bit of a depressing association attached to it.

For me it was Bioshock Inifnite by a mile, I had huge expectations. Loved the first game, enjoyed the second. Didn't like Infinite at all.

Rome Total War 2 by a mile for me. I was really hopeful when they talked about all the new systems in that game, but everything in that game is so shallow and empty and that doesn't even begin to address the technical failings.

Shogun 2 looked like they were learning lessons that Rome 2 just forgot entirely. God that was a bummer. I also really wanted The Cave to not be as bad as it is.

For me it has to be Plants vs Zombies 2. It is great right up to the point you hit the end of the world and realise you are being stiffed for money to be allowed to carry on.

There were console games that weren't as great as I had hoped - Bioshock Infinite in particular - but nothing that really bummed me out.

Edit* Changing my vote to GTA5! Just felt so outdated in too many spots.

Watch Dogs kinda has to be the winner here.

@legion_: Yup, 100% agreed. Barring DLC management, micro-transactions, and rushing games before they are finished...we live in a wonderful age of games.

Plants vs. Zombies 2

The Cave

Dead Space 3

The only thing that disappointed me this year was Dead Space 3. It sucks to say that because I still had some fun with that game but they kind of didn't do much to evolve the story, characters, environments, or enemy variety. Worth a rental but a full price purchase seems silly given the other great games that came out this year.

Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies was a let down first for being digital only. The actual game was meh, and then Capcom just had to be Capcom and offered DLC that should have just been in the game.

@elwoodan said:

for me it's bioshock infinite the gameplay was just so meh and then they shoehorn in all the story stuff in the last half hour. Aside from that I really haven't played that many games this year that are let downs, been mostly catching up on games I missed.

Nah,it has been a pretty good year for me games wise,no disappointments.

The last of us was better than i expected.

I'll echo that. I want more, I really got into that game despite no familiarity with the source material.

Also, me being shit at Rogue Legacy is a bummer. I've put in 7 hours plus by this point and I still haven't beat the first fucking boss. Terrible.

For me, it was God of War Ascension. I've been a fan of the series since its debut on the PS2, and this is the first one that just didn't click with me at all. I understand that at this point they're running low on fresh material, but the story and setting didn't ring true to me as having anything whatsoever to do with Greek Mythology. I didn't really care for the different elemental attacks or picking up shitty weapons your foes would drop, and overall the moment to moment action just seemed really bland. But I tried to trudge my way through it. Then I got to this brutal gauntlet of shit that you have to complete with no checkpoint system in between waves of enemies. After about 12 or so tries, I just said "fuck this...".

Also, The Cave is disappointing since my expectations were so high. And the only thing I really didn't like about it was that you wanted to play through it multiple times to get all the endings so why do they make you play through that minecart level every damned time? But I dug the setup a lot, the execution was not great though.

I loved just about everything I played this year, but I have to say I felt The Walking Dead: 400 Days was fucking awful, so bad I skipped two of the scenarios until a day like today, when Season 2 would release and I'd feel like I needed to know what happened. It was only 45 minutes of my life and $5 of my money, but MAN. That thing came off flawed as HELL to me.

@chavtheworld: It's ok. But it is inferior to its predecessors in many ways and fails to deliver on the one thing you want to do when playing a city-building game: build a fucking huge city. It could have been so much more. Man I went all on this game. Super Deluxe pre-order and what-not.

I forgot about Dead Space 3. But I got it "for free" due to the SimCity-disaster. BF4 had some issues for me, but has been running smooth since a few patches.

I only played about 30min of Rome 2 so far. But if failed to captivate me in a way the predecessors did. mostly because the UI is confusing as hell, even for a TW-veteran.

SimCity completely and you can all burn me at the stake Gone Home - That game is (awful) EDIT I look back and that is harsh it just presented itself as something different I came away disappointed, the atmosphere Kills for like the first 10mins then it all falls away to (spoilers) a story of teenage melodrama and bad life choices because of course it was a good idea and a happy ending for her far to young sister to have ran off to god knows where with some edgy girl that will probably end badly and leave her stranded or crawling back to a home that will have almost certainly Completely fallen apart by then because her parents will split from the extra pressure of her missing. Also the puzzles were shit and much like the atmosphere I figured out her sister was gay and ran away in those first 10mins and that just sort of ruined the experience for me.

SimCity is the right answer and I didn't even play the game. How excited people were and then when they started playing it…a week after it launched because it was broken, and realizing how it wasn't what they thought or hoped it would be. Definition of a Disappointment.

Just as Dragon Age 2 was a lock a few years back, this IS the Most Disappointing Game of 2013

the PS4 and xbox one.

big expectations and they did not deliver...YET!

I like the list and your attitude. I would throw on Metro LL to that list too for myself.

However to disappointments.

I liked Dead Space 3 cause I have a suit fetish. But it was not scary. It was a shit story.

I absolutely love Borderlands 2. That game is my type of thing and when I saw Aliens CM was being made by Gearbox I was pumped. I bought it and using the word disappointment seems a bit of an understatement. :.(

Saints Row IV was a total fucking snorefest after playing for a few hours.

Overall tho I loved gaming this year. Way more highs than lows for me.

I've also only played about an hour, but I'm waiting to play Rome II coop. Then I'm sure I'll play a ton.

Knack was definitely the biggest disappointment for me this year. I didn't have very high expectations to begin with, but I was hoping to find something enjoyable about that game. It looks bad, it plays bad, and the characters are uninteresting.

Overall though I was pleasantly surprised by more games than I was disappointed this year. I was especially surprised by DMC and ACIV, which turned out to be two of my favorite games this year.

@artisanbreads: Absolution actually came out at the tail end of 2012 I just got around to playing it this year.

It's Dead Space 3 for me, I'm done with that series unless a reboot shows up.

Simcity is the biggest disappointment for me.

Also having followed The Bureau from its interesting initial concept, where that project went from a design perspective seemed like such a wasted opportunity.

Dead Space 3 PS3

Killzone:Shadowfall PS4

oh okay I didn't feel like it was this year. Thanks.

I kind of hate you for this considering Ni No Kuni was my personal game of the year.

Anyway GTA V was a let down for me. There are many reasons but the main ones probably would be that I didn't like the 3 protagonists thing. I'd rather have a character that we can customize. Load times were garbage, especially with all the character switching you had to do, it became so annoying. Giving you access to everything up front was lame, there was no sense of discovery and that feeling of getting to go to a new area and having access to new things.

Oliver sucks so fucking much though. Whine, whimper, "But I...", "I just...", cry cry cry. That's all of his dialogue right? Maybe he grows a pair as it goes along but I had no fucking patience for his whimpy bullshit. Plus the gameplay loop was just so tedious. Who doesn't have heart, soul, energy, enthusiasm, what the fuck ever else? You don't? Great, let me get this idiot over here to lend me some of his crap to put into you so you'll be full of crap and I can proceed to some boring ass combat. Awesome.

I hear ya. To me the characters were not the problem but the horrid, horrid gameplay. Great opening and then the game just turns into kill room after kill room.

I don't think I disliked any of the games I played from this year. That said, I was disappointed a bit by Antichamber. There were decently sized portions of the game I just found ho-hum, and the puzzles never reached the heights I was anticipating.

I wasn't really expecting much from it, but The Raven only barely managed to scratch the point and click itch I had going when I bought it. It was OK, but just barely so.

And though I loved the first episode, I am not happy with how long we've waited for episode two of The Wolf Among Us. I mean, come on. I bought The Walking Dead after all the episodes were out, and I'm wishing I'd just waited for that with The Wolf Among Us.