I still haven't decided which game was the one I enjoyed the most this year. No sir, but I have no doubts in my mind as to which one I enjoyed the least. And that game would be Diablo 3.

I have been waiting for this game since it announced first. Impatiently waiting. My excitement for more Diablo exponentially increased with every minuscule tidbit of information released. Every time Blizzard announced a new class I would say"I am DEFINITELY playing this class first" I admit, I set unrealistically high expectations for Diablo 3. And it far exceeded these expectations.

It was released, and of course I bought it day one. Played it a lot. A LOT. All day, most of the night, and with friends too. And I loved it.

By now you`re thinking `well what the hell, you said it was the worst game for you!' It is, and here's why.

The god damn auction house bullshit; the economy of the game in general. I spent HOURS just on the auction house, looking for better items and selling my old ones. At first I didn't mind, but then I found out one of the mods over at Blizz forums admitted that Blizzard rigged the game so that you'd get less impressive loot, to move the economy of the AH. More and more, and with the difficulty levels rising, I found myself not actually slaying the minions of Hell, but slaying my time clicking around the AH. And I hated it. I hated it because I HAD to use the AH, or I wouldnt be able to progress. And that pissed me off to no end.

And then came the account freeze.

I woke up one day, after a while of not playing and decided to play some Diablo. I tried logging in, and I had forgotten my password. I asked that the code be texted to my phone. BUT, oh what's this? I had changed my number! So I attempted to change my number on my account, but of course, to verify, they'd text my old number. What in the actual Hell are Blizz thinking? I eventually remembered it, but at this point I shut off the game, and I havent turned it on since. This was back in August, and I dont know if things have changed.

Frankly, I dont care.

Sounds like you had bad fur day, do you get it?

I'm going to be shocked if Diablo doesn't make the Most Disappointing list this year.

That game gave me more entertainment than most other $60 games this year, even if the endgame wasn't enough to keep me playing through a 4th time. I can see you making a case for most disappointing game, but WORST game? You're insane, and your opinion is wrong.

@familyphotoshoot said:

I'm going to be shocked if Diablo doesn't make the Most Disappointing list this year.

Given how much the crew seemed to enjoy it I would be shocked if it did. Hell ill be shocked if it doesnt make the top 10.

@familyphotoshoot said:

I'm going to be shocked if Diablo doesn't make the Most Disappointing list this year.

They normally do three per category right? I'd bet that Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed 3, Resident Evil 6, Doom 3 BFG Edition, and Steel Battalion Heavy Armor are all more likely to be in that category than Diablo 3. I feel like they've talked about those 5 being disappointing way more than Diablo 3.

@laserbolts: Considering how the entire crew dropped it like a ton of bricks after maybe a week, I wouldn't be surprised to see it make most disappointing. Remember how enthusiastic Brad was about it on launch week? Remember how he never talked about it again afterwards? That game had a lifespan of about as long as a gallon of milk.

lol so a part of the game, that you don't have to use, makes it the worst game of the year? lol

Sounds like someone needs to play Torchlight 2.

Considering the pace they go through games, is it really surprising that they didn't stick with it? Other than Starcraft 2, name one game that any of them talked about for months after the fact. It has nothing to do with their disappointment and everything to do with them just playing newer stuff

@familyphotoshoot:

True but they usually dont stick with any game very long. It seems their jobs dont really allow them to. At least Jeff and Brad anyways since they actually write reviews. We will just have to wait and see. I dont really care either way I enjoyed Diablo and it is nowhere near worst of the year for me.

I thought Diablo III was a huge disappointment but if it's the worst game you played all year then I think you've had a pretty awesome year then.

@MildMolasses: They talked about XCOM for like four podcasts in a row earlier this year.

@haffy: Yup. It was such an overwhelming disappointment. I guess I should use that phrase: Most disappointing game of the year, for me.

@believer258: Would you recommend it? I never played the first one!

@Grissefar: ZING! :)

i personally thought the game part was fine, but i'll agree the Auction house made it less about loot finding and more about browsing the AH. But it's still one of my fav games this year.

The way the game was launched, being so auction house dependent was despicable agreed. Since you haven't played since August, you might wanna know TC, that Blizz has come to their senses mostly, and all the updates since have made the endgame far more fair and fun. Drop rates are still an issue but all the other silly design stuff in inferno have been changed or deleted. Anyway, it's still a fun game for me, but get this, last time(2 weeks ago)I played there were around 8000 public games going. That number speaks for itself imo.

That and Torchlight 2 is very good if you're interested, mods and all.

It really is the most disappointing game of the year, closely followed by AC3.

I enjoyed it to a point after launch but between the short as hell length to the overall game (it still feels like only 2/3 of a game with a lot cut out), little randomness & how after a while it devolved into one of the things that turned me off WoW was unless you are playing with an ultra costly gear (on auction house) & specific build, the higher difficulties will be problematic, yes I'd like to play with what I find fun not what someone else figures is the best skill for the class. After playing through on normal difficulties with a few classes, it clearly lots it's appeal quickly. Later when the new changes came through to the game, decided to load it up for a weekend to see the new things, went to reinstall it & got some error about it not able to reinstall the game on the same pc (believe it was the installer unable to write to the default folder), said screw it & that was about it for me with D3.

@familyphotoshoot said:

I'm going to be shocked if Diablo doesn't make the Most Disappointing list this year.

Prepare to be shocked then. You are vastly underestimating how disappointing other games have been this year.

@believer258 said:

Sounds like someone needs to play Torchlight 2.

Diablo 3 was fun for the 11/2 times I played it. @believer258 covers the rest.

I do think that AH biz could be asking for a mess, but I never saw the place.

I can see Diablo 3 being the biggest disappointment of the year for some people, but the worst game ? It's a perfectly fine game, even with its weak endgame and with the auction house bullshit.

I had a shitton of problems with DIII, but I did play it for 225 hours and made about $200, so I can't complain.

Considering it took a little more than a hundred hours to start sucking, I'd say that game is mostly awesome. Those first 100h where preeeetty good. That it fell apart into tiny pieces after that is irrelevant if I can just quit and play something else instead.

So, D3 is a game you loved and spent hours on it. And yet, it turnd out to be the worst game of the year for you because you fucked up? Ok.

Diablo III was a shit game.

So boring and bland with poor loot.

@Conker said:

@haffy: Yup. It was such an overwhelming disappointment. I guess I should use that phrase: Most disappointing game of the year, for me.

@believer258: Would you recommend it? I never played the first one!

@Grissefar: ZING! :)

To be fair, Torchlight 1 and 2 are the only two games of this type that I've ever really gotten into - but I really like what I've played of Torchlight 2. It's on sale on Steam right now. If you want a good loot game and have some spending money, I say go for it. The second one, though - the first one is a good game but it's only one (massive and varied) dungeon and there's not multiplayer, whereas the second game has several different areas and co-op.

@Grissefar said:

Sounds like you had bad fur day, do you get it?

Post of the year.

@Conker: Play Torchlight 2 brother. It's not as heavy metal or "dark" as Diablo is, but it's exactly what you expect out of Diablo style RPG.

And it should be, considering most of Runic is made up of old Diablo devs.

Didn't even make Brad's Top 10.

Diablo 3 is one of the only games that I can think of that I really regret buying.

Between Diablo III's auction house (with a busted item economy), and Torchlight 2 in general, I think I'm done with the genre overall.

Remember Titan Quest: Immortal Throne? Somehow, a copy managed to be more satisfying than the successor. Diablo III wasn't the worst game of the year, but it was definitely disappointing to see what they did to it.

I was expecting to be playing it for a long time and I was disappointed when that didn't happen, but the journey along the way was plenty fun. Diablo III is in no way anywhere near worst game of the year for me.

For me, it wasn't the worst, but it was pretty disappointing. I got most of the way through hell difficulty before I found that it just wasn't fun to play anymore. Once you've beat it a few times it loses appeal. I don't really care about gear so there really wasn't much to keep me going after I hit level 60. 
 
I've only played an hour and half of it so far, but Torchlight 2 is by far the better game from what I have played. It just feels more fun without having the pretense of there being a supposed story that I don't care about anyway. I have no idea what the story in TL2 is but what I do know is that the shotgun is more fun than anything in Diablo 3.

I can totally understand giving it the Most Disappointing Game of the Year title, but not for your personal misfortunes and bad reasons (economy, AH; sounds like you didn't actually play D2 at a high level).
 
 
That being said, they've fixed a lot of the issues that made the game they shipped in May so fucking bad. It went form my most disappointing game of the year in June to a game I play somewhat regularly again in November.

@TooWalrus said:

That game gave me more entertainment than most other $60 games this year, even if the endgame wasn't enough to keep me playing through a 4th time. I can see you making a case for most disappointing game, but WORST game? You're insane, and your opinion is wrong.

yeh i feel the same way, i played so much Diablo 3 over the course of the year and I finally removed it in early November, my one major disappointment is that the game remains without the PVP elements even now, which was surprising to me since i recently reinstalled it to see if i could give it a go, though the changed they made to the end game where a step in the right direction

@ajamafalous I don't see how it matters whether he's familiar with the issues D2 had at high levels. Blizzard had the time and money to address those problems before launch.

@thabigred said:

I thought Diablo III was a huge disappointment but if it's the worst game you played all year then I think you've had a pretty awesome year then.

@Galiant: Played quite a few games this year actually. The AH is not optional, you HAVE to get in there to get good items. At least thats how it was for inferno, when I stopped playing.

To be clearer, to reset my mobile number for my account, it said it would text my old number to verify. A number that no longer exists.

Diablo 3 is the worst game that I, Conker, have played this year. Its MY opinion.

@believer258: I'll look into it then, thanks for the suggestion!

I was done with that game before the real money auction house stuff happened. Beat it once on normal and that was more than enough Diablo for me. It was pretty decent though.

I didn't buy the game just because it was a time sink. I've madly clicked on monsters in D1 and 2. so why should I waste more of my time with repetitive gameplay and crappy online?

@Barrabas said:

@familyphotoshoot said:

I'm going to be shocked if Diablo doesn't make the Most Disappointing list this year.

They normally do three per category right? I'd bet that Mass Effect 3, Assassin's Creed 3, Resident Evil 6, Doom 3 BFG Edition, and Steel Battalion Heavy Armor are all more likely to be in that category than Diablo 3. I feel like they've talked about those 5 being disappointing way more than Diablo 3.

Don't forget Far Cry 3...

@Galiant: You don't have a clue what you're talking about if you think the AH was optional for Inferno. Idk how it is now, but during the month or two after release, there was no way to actually get gear with proper stats for playing Inferno other than buying it off the AH. Literally no way. Drop rates were fucking godawful, made worse when they nerfed magic find, and were completely randomized to have an equal chance of getting anything, so even when you'd actually find a decent item, it had a 75% chance to be for a class other than your own. Blizzard did it on purpose to force people into trading on the AH.

I quit for a pretty similar reason myself. Got to Inferno, couldn't continue without massive gear upgrades. There was no available way to upgrade gear in game, and I literally couldn't even progress to farm gold because I was spending every penny I earned on repairs. Blizzard gave me two options: reload an earlier section repeatedly to farm gold for hours and buy items off the AH; or fuck off. I picked the latter. I had a decent amount of fun with Diablo 3, but I don't think it was a $60 game, and I DEFINITELY feel like some of the design choices were nothing short of anti-fun. And this is without me going into the part where I made a purchase that was supposed to include PvP and never got it, but I honestly wouldn't be interested in RMAH-fueled pay-to-win bullshit anyways, so that's not even a huge bother to me.

AC3 is my most disappointing game of the year. I didn't play Diablo 3 or RE6, but I'm betting those would be up there too.

Most disappointing =/= worst

If Diablo III is your worst game of the year, you didn't play enough games.

@Example1013 said:

@Galiant: You don't have a clue what you're talking about if you think the AH was optional for Inferno. [...]

It's definitely optional because the possibility of grinding gear instead of buying it off the AH is still there. Unless your definition of optional is different from mine...the word "optional" has nothing to do with whether you like the alternatives that exist. If you're dying so much that you can't even repair then you'd go grind mobs that you could kill, repair with that gold and grind and gear up where you can without dying so much that you can't repair until you could eventually progress.