I have had varying levels of disappointment with a lot of games mentioned here, but that doesn't mean to say that I didn't enjoy them on some level. AC3 was a buggy mess with a pretty boring story, Darksiders 2 took away almost everything I liked about the first game and Mass Effect 3 was a hugely enjoyable game that didn't have the same impact as the two that came before it and a bad ending.

But none of them can even come close to how I feel about Resident Evil 6. Even with The Dragon's Dogma demo you would have thought that I was braced for what was coming. I stood pretty hopeful for it and then spent 30 hours of my life slowly dragging my way through that mess of a game.

@shadowwolf9 said:

It's so cool to hate on ME3 and other popular games nowadays. Arthur Geis was right on the most recent Rebel FM. A few people poisoned the kool aid and everyone is following along.

They destroyed the lore, released a clearly rushed and ill-thought out game with an ending that literally made no sense and continued the trend of no longer making RPG's, but dumbed down action games for the masses, thus completely alienating the original audience.

So no, I don't think it's simply a case of everyone simply "following along with a few people".

Borderlands 2, Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3.

There are still a few games I haven't played yet this year, so my list may change during and/or after Christmas holidays.

It feels like every tent pole release I was looking forward to in 2012 disappointed me. Mass Effect 3's %5 of bullshit, Borderlands 2's surprising lack of spontaneity, even Hitman: Absolution just didn't quite feel like Hitman and was thus a disappointment. It's kind of sad, really. The only retail game that I've actively enjoyed from this year has been WWE 13. The fuck happened?

Diablo III - I even have this $100 box to remind me of it every day. I thought it was going to be a game that I'd put just as much time as I did in Diablo II. It wasn't a terrible game by any means, but it fell way short of my expectations. The Diablo II LOD key that came with my collectors edition ended up being the best thing I got out of it.

@EpicSteve: Gotta somewhat disagree with you on AC3...I agree that the beginning was really plodding and I felt like it took way too long for them to let you finally do all the shit, but once it opened up I enjoyed a lot of the side activities, especially for recruiting the other assassins. I thought that the way they tried to make the assassins less interchangeable by giving them different abilities and personalities was interesting, and while they could have gone further than that it was a step forward. The combat, while mostly the same, I enjoyed a lot better because I felt the guns added a lot, slashing dudes then shooting them was very effective for me, and the multi-counter kills were very cool to see, especially the first couple times.

The rest of your complaints I can't really argue about because I'm playing on PC, so while the framiness and technical shit in the console versions sucks they didn't end up impacting my experience at all.

As for my disappointments-

ME3- while not terrible, I was expecting something a lot better coming off of Mass Effect 2. The way they were talking about reintroducing some RPG elements, and that never materialized, the way the crew this time feels less alive/cool (reduction of on-ship conversations impacted this a lot I feel), the story in general.

Diablo 3- I had a great time for my first normal runthrough of the game, but when I started to try the other classes/go through it on the harder difficulties it just failed to grab me. I felt like I was hitting the same buttons over and over again for every mob, and while that's the inherent nature of Diablo games I wasn't hooked on it like I was for other Diablo and loot based games.

Darksiders 2- Liked the first one, but just couldn't get into the 2nd one at all.

Max Payne 3- I just wanted to run around, diving backwards and sideways and forwards through all the levels shooting dudes in slow motion...what I got instead was a competent cover-based shooter that let me slow down time occasionally. Not terrible, but not what I was looking for either.

Walking Dead, with a caveat- just finished the first 2 episodes. Disliked the fact that a lot of your choices had very little impact, and wasn't immediately grabbed by any of the story either. I keep hearing good things about it though, especially the last episode, so I will finish it but so far I don't get the hype.

I'm kinda disappointed with Persona 4 Golden, I thought I would find Chie's voice less annoying over time but she really brings down the quality of voice acting in the game,also game has the difficulty toned down too much, especially the boss fights, I loved the way Shadow Yukiko kicked my ass back and forth before I finally got to beat her in one of my most satisfying moments as a gamer, new one adds too much weaknesses and tends to take out most of anything that can be considered a challenge, its like games these days have to make 'Normal" piss easy, what's the point of gameplay when your blazing through it without a threat, might as well cut it out and just make it a visual novel.

I went back and restarted the game on hard but I still feel this kinda stuff is bullshit.

For me personally, Guild Wars 2. I convinced myself yet again that I can appreciate MMOs outside of WoW as it was about 3-5 years ago. All the art, character design and combat I saw leading up to that game looked incredible but then I got in the world and it looked as janky as every other MMO that I convinced myself I was gonna play in the last five years (Warhammer, Aion, Rift, et al). The disappointment was immediate and profound. Played like an hour of it and never touched it again. Hey, I can go back to the game at any time since it doesn't have any subscription fees, right... I guess that is one tick in the plus column.

I'm torn. Torn for the fact that, while I enjoyed many things about Assassin's Creed III, I can't help but feel disappointed about it as well. The combat was fun, some story bits that stood out, fun and intense naval missions, and the multiplayer (specifically Wolfpack) was enjoyable. It looks great as well. Yet, the Connor story for me doesn't live up to its potential; the latter is a decent character, but I didn't like some things about his personality. A number of events in the story feel anticlimactic, and the ending was indeed fucking terrible. Gameplay-wise, the chase sequences, the eavesdrop, etc. etc. were frustrating to no end, more frustrating than past AC games. There's little to no connective tissue to the side missions and activities you were doing. It had glaring technical issues as well.

I feel like I'm being pulled on both sides. One, of course, is that I enjoyed it a bunch, and is still considering it to be at least in my top 10 games of 2012. At the same time though, ACIII's drastic flaws are making me second guess my decision. Damnit, I don't know...

Probably the most disappointing for me this year is FFXIII-2. In some respects, it's a better game than FFXIII, but some things they add, like sidequests and clock puzzles and all that were more frustrating and uninviting than actual fun. And the story. Oh, fuckin' hell, how terrible that was. All that melodrama. All the unlikable characters and poor dialogue. Thank god you could skip cutscenes at least. I somehow S-ranked that game, but ultimately felt indifferent about it that it just leaves me wondering if Versus XIII will even be interesting. More importantly, if that game will actually come out.

Oh right, RE6. What the fuck were they thinking? Not that it matters, because I stopped caring about that series after forcing myself to finish RE5. Max Payne 3? Stopped playing after just 4 hours because it was giving me a headache.

AC3 was fucking horrible and takes Most Disappointing fo sho! I mean what a goddamn snooze fest...

But seriously, it is the perfect candidate in this category given the huge amounts of promise it had. Showing it of at E3, it looked great. People were hyped - myself included - and couldn't wait to get their hands on it. And though objectively not a bad game per se, and despite a very decent metacritic score , the fans reaction and amounts of wasted potential ultimately puts a dark cloud over the whole thing.

And I don't mean to repeat my self but MOTHERFUCKER that game was boring!

it's weird.

i don't think i've been disappointed by any game this year. i've enjoyed the fuck out of everything i've played.

ME3

Diablo 3

Max Payne 3

Darksiders 2

Dishonoured

XCOM

The Walking Dead

Far Cry 3

i've not played AC3 yet or NFS:MW yet and i played a lot from last year that i never got around to playing. but man i've enjoyed this year as a gamer.

maybe i just manage my expectations

The Walking Dead, not only did I encounter the PC save-erasing bug 4 separate times, but I couldn't bring myself to enjoy a moment of that experience thanks to technical issues and shambolic writing. Not to mention the whole lack of gameplay and illusion of choice nonsense, try playing it again making the opposite choices... it makes no difference to anything. TWD takes my award for most over-rated, disappointing turd of the year, a fine achievement considering the year also contained Mass Effect 3.

AC3 - Never grabbed me, felt like I was forcing myself to play it. Shame, I loved AC2

X-Com - Liked the game, but I beat it once and never felt the need to touch it again. Weird since strategy games are my go to.

Honorable Mention: Mass Effect 3 - Game was amazing... until that ending... boy that ending. The updated one was so-so, I was more disappointed with the way choices were factored in and not necessarily the actual presentation.

Kingdoms of Amalur was probably the one game that I had hopes for that feel flat for me, but I probably should have expected it.

I'll say the end of the Commander Shepard story, instead of saying "Mass Effect 3" as a whole. It's still a 90+ / Five star game, but I just hate the ending. My wife finished a few days before me and when I finished the original ending, I finally understood why she didn't want to talk about it. It was so incongruent with the ghost child and the relay explosion. Where were my rachni that I imagined for four years making a clutch save of the Alliance fleet?!? I wanted my Shepard to die in battle or heroically, but I wanted to watch as all the cards, my war assets, got put down and succeeded or failed. While I appreciate what Bioware eventually did later, I still sting from Bioware PR saying the Extended Cut would not change the ending or the artistic vision (it absolutely did both), it implied we were too stupid to worship the genius of the original ending, and that people who were dissatisfied with the original ending were painted as entitled crybabies by outlets like IGN and journos that had not completed the game. It was eye opening. I still think ME3 is a great game that completed 95% of its job only to explode in the final moments. The hype from Bioware and the Final Hours project that there would be infinitely custom endings was BS. The Extended Cut was better, but it can't replace the feeling I had when finishing it the first time. I could have accepted the ending as it originally was, but I wouldn't come back to Bioware for narrative-heavy franchise games. I accept a do-over, if they wanted, not owed, to do one, and they did. I have not played a single Mass Effect DLC since the Extended Cut, and will not be preordering or buying at $60 Dragon Age 3 or the next Mass Effect game. ME3 is a fine game as a whole, but still... the most true statement about my gaming in 2012 would be the ending of Mass Effect 3 disappointed me.

Soulcalibur V and its laughable story mode. I think the recent Mortal Kombat had an incredible story mode, and I think it is the standard other fighting games story modes should emulate. Smash Bros Brawl had an enjoyable story mode as well, but not many other fighting franchises can deep fry their game storyline with nostalgia. If every character will not get their own old school custom storyline, which I very loosely define as a well done introduction cut scene or movie, one or two dialogue scenes between matches, and a paragraph of text with better than average artwork or video at the end, the story should be long, interweaving, and well done in the footsteps of the recent MK. Give me quality or quantity. Soulcalibur does neither. SCV's story was primarily three characters fighting matches in between concept art displayed with VO. Dead or Alive 5 has a decent and long story mode that wasn't disappointing in effort, but it's on watch for retreading the same story from DOA4 again and did not wow me either.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted brought to you by J.J. Abrams- I love Burnout Paradise. 100%ed the main game, motorcycles, and Big Surf Island. I was very excited for this game but cannot get into it. I have a hard time making my own fun and picking up oncoming traffic with overwrought lens flares in tunnels. I think the jack point system makes learning the mechanics and drifting characteristics of each car difficult. I have 22 cars at the moment and don't feel like I'm competent with any of them. The soundtrack is unremarkable and likes to play The Who too often. I'm still going to give it a try early next year and loop Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend instead.

That said I enjoyed Assassin's Creed III. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Haytham, and breathed in Boston in those hours. Haytham synced up those viewpoints like a mad man. I think Connor is an interesting character as well. I played all the homestead missions, which would help those that believe he is without a distinct character or boring. The crafting and inventroy menus were slow but I didn't have any bugs or crashes. I was expecting a Return of the Jedi redemption scene by Haytham at the end, but didn't get it. Oh well, it would have been sweet. AC has a history of WTF endings, so I can go along with it. The final ending wasn't spoiled for me, so I had to give Ubi the slow clap as those long credits rolled. I'll penalize the next game if they can't pay it off. I'll miss Shaun however if he doesn't show up in the next game.

Sadly it was Mass Effect 3 for me. It's not even all about the ending either. There where weird animation glitches. Some of the missions where very bland with uninteresting "dirt mound" environments and just plain silly story elements. That horrible on-site news reporter character. Some absolutely ridiculous and poorly written lines - some of Rex's mission really stand out.

It's painful because parts of ME3 where good, even the majority. But splashing around in a pool of 95% fresh water and 5% piss and vomit - still not a good time.

Resident Evil 6. Nothing I've played this year can even come close.

The only game I played this year was Persona 4 Arena and I didn't even finish it

Whoops.

I do have a copy of Mass Effect 3 but I want to play Shadow Broker in ME2 and buy the Prothean to play in ME3.

Darksiders II. I'm usually right when I call my game of the year early, but not with this game. It's not a bad game or anything but the repetitive mission structure and an unnecessarily large world just ruined it for me. The loot system was also garbage. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Resident Evil 6 by a fucking mile. Aside from the fact that the story is incredibly lazy and half-assed, the game plays like shit and it is riddled with terrible design choices at nearly every turn. What should have been one of the most incredible and epic gaming experiences of this generation was ruined by Capcom trying to make the game be everything to everyone. As far as I can recall, this is the one of two cases of a game disappointing me so much that it actually left me legitimately angry.  Funnily enough, the second one was also this year.
 
Then would be Darksiders 2. Man, I really, really loved the first Darksiders. Given that I am not a Zelda fan by any means and that I didn't really have any expectations going into it, it blew me away and was one of the nicest surprised I've had with a game. It had simple but satisfying combat, a great art style, cool environments that were fun to explore, excellent puzzles that did a great job at breaking up the action, and an intriguing story with one of the best game endings I've ever seen. When it was announced that the sequel wouldn't even be picking up after the first, that was enough of a disappointment but I still had hope that Vigil would find a way to make good on Darksiders 1's foundation. Turns out they didn't. I wouldn't call it a bad game by any means, but the only real improvement made was the combat, and even that's debatable. The story and characters were dull, the environments and puzzles pretty bland, the loot system a little pointless and poorly implemented, and the game overall was terribly paced due to the overuse of "do this three times" and "get this for me" quest structure along with the side dungeons. I never thought I would complain about a game having "too much" content, but that definitely applies here. And the ending...fuck me, that was horrible. What a tragic waste of a tremendous set-up rife with possibilities. 
 
This year has been pretty underwhelming for me. There are a few other slight disappointments, like Kingdoms of Amalur and Syndicate, but they were still enjoyable and I can't say I was really that hyped for either of them in the first place. Max Payne 3, The Walking Dead, and Borderlands 2 are the three standouts for me, the latter of which I see getting mentioned way, way too often in this thread so far. I've liked some other stuff quite a bit, but nothing that really blew me away. Then again, there are a few things I haven't had a chance to check out either. Dishonored and XCOM still interest me, and I just got The Witcher 2 in the mail today ($10 from Gamestop on Cyber Monday!) but I've no clue when I'll play it, especially with Far Cry this week.

AC 3 has been by far the most disappointing game I've played in a long time. It's not even just that it's disappointing. It's a bad game.

Dishonored.

At no point did I ever feel drawn into that game and really immersed in the world.

yeah, definitely Assassin's Creed 3.

Ubisoft definitely did a great job in making it look like something special though. I haven't liked any of the previous AC games, yet for some reason I decided AC3 looked good enough to buy on day 1.

Diablo 3 took it for me, though I haven't played ME3 or AC3 yet. Year of the bad 3?

Can't think of any games that disappointed me.  
Mass Effect 3 I loved(Questions were answered)  
Assassin's Creed III is fantastic 
Hitman: Absolution is a great game. 
 
Those are just the more recent ones (ME3 = Recent because I jumped back in to play the Omega stuff) 
 
Maybe one of those indie games. 
Like "Oldschool 2D platformer with retro graphics #4234"  
 
 
But if I had to be serious it's probably Chivalry, that game's just fucking terrible but I wasn't really disappointed because I didn't expect anything from it, at all. 

Borderlands 2 was a bit dissapointing.

@shadowwolf9 said:

Arthur Geis was right

This has literally never happened.

Journey

I only got four new games this year (trying to cut down a massive backlog) and of them, I would say ME3. The game was pretty awesome sans the nonsensical ending but, then I got sucked into the indoctrination theory and my heart was crushed by the extended cut.

AC3 suuuuucked.

But the ending of ME3 really soured the entire experience, even though the first 80% of the game was real good. ME2 is still the best game in the franchise.

Man I wished ME3 would've gotten a different ending.

It's so cool to hate on ME3 and other popular games nowadays. Arthur Geis was right on the most recent Rebel FM. A few people poisoned the kool aid and everyone is following along.

@EpicSteve

Well written blog Steve. Interesting points were made. My biggest dissapointment was the amount of negativity in the community. Not just on GB but everywhere else. Your blog would've been better had you started with the positives first, then the negatives as you do when for eaxmple, you are going to give constructive criticism someone at your work. Just saying. Still this has been an interesting thread to read. Cheers.

didnt play AC3, ME3 or RE6 so biggest disapointment has to be Darksiders 2, just because I loved Darksiders 1, and 2 just didnt "click" with me. I would almost say the same about Borderlands 2, which i stopped playing at around 14 hours, but I still intent to get back to it. But yeah those 2, really made me reconsider getting excited for sequels based on my love of the originals.

I have had zero disappointments this year, most of the games I played this year were great. I haven't finished ME3 so maybe that's it. I could say SH:Downpour, but that was a bit expected.

Max Payne 3.

All games disappoint me for I am a person on the internet.

Assassins Creed 3 so far.Havn't finished it yet.Don't know if I will.

Mass Effect 3. It's just a disappointing game altogether, which really falls apart after Tuchanka. It simply feels rushed or underdeveloped. Add to it some idiotic BioWare-branded fanservice, terrible character arcs (EDI, Ashley, Kai Leng) and one of the worst end levels in video game history that completely failed to deliver on any promise - the assault on Earth. People rag on the ending, but what really ruined that game for me is that uneventful corridor crawl which culminates in a battle where the game throws waves of the toughest enemies at you without checkpoints. And there's the ending that comes out of nowhere, rapes the lore into oblivion and goes against the series' very theme. The Extended Cut and Leviathan didn't fix things, it only made it worse. Leviathan introduced more dumb developments and EC only showed how short-sighted BioWare really is.

It's just puzzling. Mass Effect 2 was a great game, sure, but it was also a gigantic patchwork job, forced by EA's sudden decision to include Cerberus as a major plot point and the need to accommodate the 360's DVD drive. But they managed to pull it off and the stitches were only visible after you actively looked after them. In ME3's case, it's like they put all the cash and effort into Tuchanka and then realized that there is no way in hell for them to do the rest the way they wanted to. That fucking assault on Earth. ME2's main selling point was the Suicide Mission and it delivered. It wasn't really hard or anything, but it was a tense, memorable experience. 3's endgame looks like it was made in a weekend.

My more personal one is Darksiders II. While I didn't have a lot of expectations when I went in, I was absolutely blasted away by the first act. The prologue and the adventures in the Forge Lands are just fucking great. I was sure it's going to be my GOTY just going by its clever design. It struck me as a game which knew what it wanted to be, whose developers simply knew what they wanted to do, intelligently borrowing concepts and spicing them up. Then, the Dead Plains happened and the bland environments combined with boring padding simply ruined the game for me. The Forge Lands had three distinctive styles, fun dungeons and cool boss battles. The Dead Plains are a complete anti-thesis - boring environment, tedious level design and terrible boss fights that now rely on how much Resistance and Defense you have. And the game never recovered from that. I can't imagine how they manged to fuck this up. Why did they feel the need to add 5 hours of needless bullshit into an otherwise well-made game?

Man, I'm really torn about this year's GOTY. It's either Max Payne 3 or XCOM at this point. I haven't finished Assassin's Creed III yet, but right now the game failed to grab me as much as AC2 did, which was my favorite game of 2009.

@BeachThunder said:

@Sploder said:

I only played good games this year :)

Disappointing doesn't necessarily mean bad, just a failure to live up to potential.

I rephrase for myself then. I enjoyed all the games I played this year. Never disappointed. Yes, I love Mass Effect 3. Shocker.

Max Payne 3 or Spec Ops: The Line is my favorite game of the year. I'm torn on which to pick, because I love everything about them.

My most disappointing game would have to be Borderlands 2. It was a good game... but... I just had the feeling of "meh" the entire time playing it. I never got to beating it, uninstalled it half way through the story.

@Hailinel said:

@jonny126 said:

People rag on ME3 too much. It wasn't as good as 2, but ME2 is one of the best games of this generation so that's a lot to live up to. Definitely agree with you on Assassin's Creed 3 and Resident Evil 6. I'd also toss Hitman on that list.

Not everyone considers Mass Effect 2 as good as you believe it is.

exactly. Thus if you believed that, then ME3 was not disappointing because it was largely the same anyway, beyond the ending.

For me it has to be AC3, ME 3, Darksiders 2, Diablo 3 and Borderlands 2. I didn't finish ME3, I got halfway through and just gave up on it, it felt like a bad version of 2 to me. Diablo 3, you've heard all my complaints from a million other Diablo fans months ago. Darksiders 2, strip away good ideas from the first through in loot call it a day. Borderlands 2, bored to tears within 5 hours, just not enough changes to keep me interested. AC3 was the worst ending of the decade for one of, I think, the coolest story lines in games for a while.

@Hailinel: It really did, which is weird considering they had four years since the previous Soul Calibur game.

@Hunter5024 said:

For me Soul Calibur 5 easily takes the cake. I didn't expect it to be amazing or anything, especially after the Quick Look, but that game was really just a steaming pile of shit, and I normally have a lot of reserve when it comes to insulting games I don't like. It pretty much ruined everything I liked about the series beforehand, and was worse about the things I didn't like to begin with. I really don't see that series recovering easily either, I feel like they killed it.

Anyways Assassins Creed 3 was really the only other disappointment, but I liked that a lot more than other people seemed to. Beyond some nitpicks like framerate, and a disjointed feel, I think it would've been a a much more impressive game if the missions themselves were simply more creative or fun.

True, there were things about SC5 that were very disappointing, but all the same, I actually did enjoy the story mode, as short as it was. The game just felt like Namco rushed to get it out the door far too soon.

@Hailinel said:

@jonny126 said:

People rag on ME3 too much. It wasn't as good as 2, but ME2 is one of the best games of this generation so that's a lot to live up to. Definitely agree with you on Assassin's Creed 3 and Resident Evil 6. I'd also toss Hitman on that list.

Not everyone considers Mass Effect 2 as good as you believe it is.

Mass Effect 3 is better than Mass Effect 2.

ACIII takes the prize in my book. I really like it because it's an AC game and I'm into playing those but I hoped there would be more significant changes and especially the design of the main missions was extremely uninspired from time to time. Hitman Absolution is a close second and again it's a game that's far from being bad but it's not really what I wanted after sinking so much time into Blood Money (especially that fucking abysmal checkpoint system).

In my personal opinion ME3 doesn't belong on that list and it is in fact my GotY. Yes, the ending was basically a kick in the balls but I've made my peace with it a while ago (haven't even played the extended cut yet) and no other game except maybe Far Cry 3 came close to the enjoyment I got out of it.

For me Soul Calibur 5 easily takes the cake. I didn't expect it to be amazing or anything, especially after the Quick Look, but that game was really just a steaming pile of shit, and I normally have a lot of reserve when it comes to insulting games I don't like. It pretty much ruined everything I liked about the series beforehand, and was worse about the things I didn't like to begin with. I really don't see that series recovering easily either, I feel like they killed it.

Anyways Assassins Creed 3 was really the only other disappointment, but I liked that a lot more than other people seemed to. Beyond some nitpicks like framerate, and a disjointed feel, I think it would've been a a much more impressive game if the missions themselves were simply more creative or fun.

Dishonored that game was awful

@wemibelec90 said:

I just finished Gravity Rush, and that was a pretty big disappointment. Such a cool idea marred by shitty combat. My review of it probably sounded way harsher than the two stars I gave it.

I platinumed it and at the end I just felt indifferent. The world and style of the game was neat but, like you said, the combat was just bad. Not horrible but not great either.

While I do think that gaming culture in general focuses too much on what is disappointing, I would have to say AC3 as well. I was having so much fun with that game until I did most of the side stuff and had to go back to the story... whomp whomp. Too little freedom in missions for an engine and world that were supplying so many possibilities.