Most Disappointing Game of the Decade?

Huh. This one surprises me. The prequels have had issues, but I've never seen someone just hate them both wholesale. I would say Deus Ex is probably my number one all time and I thoroughly enjoyed HR and MD, despite the flaws in each, but if they didn't hit with you as a fan of the original then your criticism seems fair.

Was your disappointment with Mankind Divided for the same reasons as Human Revolution? I know the main complaint is the core story-line feels incomplete, but I found Prague to be a interesting place to explore with a lot of unexpected details, and the side missions fleshed out the world in some interesting ways.

Resistance 3 was super disappointing after a fantastic second game. 3 had mediocre multiplayer and a lack luster campaign mode made this game just slide under the radar and people forgot this game exist.

Twisted Metal (PS3): While i enjoyed this game was a lot of fun, the story mode was repetitive and there just wasn't a whole lot in this game in terms of content.

PS Allstars Battle Royale: Now I actually like this game a lot and think its a lot of fun and enjoy building the meter and using the specials to get the KOs as oppsed to smash knock out of the ring. But man that single player is bad, some of the controls are wonky and the menus are honestly the worst part looks just unfinished.

I'd say Mass Effect Andromeda, but I find that more existentially disappointing than disappointing as a game. I saw enough from the previews to realize that it was going to be a pretty crappy game, so I managed to calibrate my expectations prior to playing it. However, it's still disappointing because it probably killed freaking Mass Effect.

In terms of the gut punch of a game I actually had expectations for that weren't fulfilled, it's easily Sekiro for me. I love every other From game (with the exception of Demon Souls, which, having not owned a PS3, I haven't played) and have completed multiple NG+ cycles with the DLC for all three Dark Souls and Bloodborne, so it's fair to say I was pretty hyped for Sekiro.

And then it was a spiteful, hateful, miserable, horrid experience. It took everything that was good and cool from the Soulsborne games and threw it right out the window. Stats and interesting weapons? Gone. Gross, weird bosses? Gone. Interesting, dream-like world? How about boring as fuck characters instead? Oh, you liked the crazy, nightmarish environments in the other games? Better hope you like snow and caves and castles on repeat. It feels like the only things they kept from the other games were the bad camera and framerate hitching on console.

I can't remember the last time I had such a visceral and immediate dislike of nearly every single thing a game was doing.

It's probably Andromeda, but I am also something of a defender of that game like some of the other people in this thread. Still, that defense boils down to "it's not THAT bad." Similar to Dragon Age Inquisition, I think that game is at its best when you're doing the authored content instead of the mediocre open world stuff.

A close runner up would be launch-window Destiny. I loved the Halo games and when I first heard that Bungie's next project was a shooter-MMO hybrid, I was pumped beyond belief. And then I got the game and while the shooting was fun, everything else was tedious and/or nonsensical. I thought it was really telling at the time that the friends of mine who were the most into it were the ones who had zero experience with WoW or other MMOs like I had, so a lot of the ideas around faction grinding were new to them. Destiny was so disappointing I gave up roughly halfway through the campaign (I think right around the time you first meet the Awoken) when I came to the realization that "I have no idea who I am, what I am, where I am, where I'm going, what I'm intending to do there, or what my ultimate goal is."

Also yes I'm still mad that Brad got Destiny onto the 2014 GOTY list over Wolfenstein and Divinity.

Artifact was a huge disapointment for me but the one that still sticks with me to this day is the overhaul, map change, then sequential end, to Paragon.

I absolutely adored the original version, being able to moba from the comfort of my armchair on ps4 was some of my all time favourite gaming time. I can still remember the day I fired up the game to be met with the aweful new 'action' based gameplay and a new smaller much less diverse map. It is no surprise it eventually died as they took it in the exact opposite direction it's audience wanted.

Epic making stupid money with Fortnite not that long after didn't help the healing.

Mass Effect Andromeda probably. I did like the multiplayer though.

I recently played through Bound and Idk what I was expecting, probably just a beautiful little experience with some heart. What I got instead was an empty mess of a game that didn't captured an ounce of the potential of a dancing protagonist. God, it just made me sad. I didn't know a small game with little hype, little expectations could disappoint that much.

These are based on my excitment for said title and how disappointed I was in the games. The games may not be necessarily bad, but I was let down by them whether in quality or design choice.

Winner: Hotline Miami 2

It was the game I look forward to the most this decade after how much I loved the first one. I bounced off it in 15 minutes launch day. Eventually I got a trainer and made my way through the game, still didn't find it fun. Forcing the use of guns was the worst decision they could have made. First one was incredibly addicting; the focus on melee weapons fit the frenetic energy and soundtrack perfectly. Second one has a few cool sequences but man that game sucked shit. Good soundtrack though.

Dis-honorable mention: ME3 at launch, I was fucking bummed out by this game. After all the DLC released and eventually some distance from my first playthrough, it is fine, but I'm still resentful by how much I disliked that game originally.

Dis-honorable mention: Arkham City, I still don't like this game very much. Asylum is still the best one (by a great margin mind you) and while I haven't played them in a while, Origins is the better out of the other 3, but not my much. I hate the open world and most of the game honestly, I remember the final boss being a ton of fun and wanting Rocksteady to do a samurai game, that's about my lone positive for the game. It's fine but wasn't the direction I wanted after Asylum.

Dis-honorable mention: DA2, lol I actually forgot about this, guess time heals all wounds? Loved DA:O and this was a bummer of a sequel. Its fine now that I look back on it, not the sequel I wanted and not nearly as epic as the first, but eh. Was def a sign of bad things for bioware the next ohhhhhhhhhhhh......decade. Rough

Dis-honorable mention: Puzzle Agent 3. All TellTale had to do was release Puzzle Agent 3 and everything would've been fine. Fuck them for never making this /s

For me they were sim city (my my what a blown opportunity. Mad props for birthing city skylines though!), sekiro (I tried my best to get into it but this was the game that made me jump into the dark souls-esque water. And I can honestly say that those games are not for me. Kudos to those that enjoy any of those games but I can continue living the rest of my days not ever thinking of that again), and lastly Zelda BOTW (everything seems alright or even fun in this game except one that. FUCK WEAPON DEGRADATION! I can’t get over it. Everything you use breaks and it’s gone forever. Like if things got ruined and less effective before you have to repair it is one thing but yeeesh)

Mass Effect 3 is my top choice in this one. I would have said Andromeda but I felt like it was just okay.

In terms of dishonorable mentions though:

- Infamous 2. The only game in the series that I didn't finish simply because I lost interest in it. I almost didn't pickup Second Son because of that reason. Second Son would go on to be my favorite out of the franchise.

- Evolve: Played for a couple days and stopped when it just didn't grab me anymore.

- Uncharted 3: My least favorite out of the franchise as a whole package. I disliked how the story closed. Thankfully, we got 4 to close out the series and the multiplayer was a huge step down compared to 2's.

- Dissidia NT: Oddly enough, I went mostly dark on this until it was released. The combat in this feels too simplified compared to the original and 012 on PSP.

^This person nailed it. From the games that were bad to what too many gamers have become.

A cheeky entry from me -

I don't think expectations were that high to begin with; but there was definitely a buzz at a certain point about this, and the fallout was a messy spectacle in the best Peter Molyneux tradition:

Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube?

I can see Mass Effect: Andromeda be the choice by consensus, but I actually liked the game overall and slightly more so the second time around when I got it on the Xbox One X after all the updates were out (I originally bought and played it on base PS4 before any major patch came out). The game is a fun shooter, and is, for the most part, a beautiful looking game with nice looking worlds to explore. For me though, perhaps my choice would be Dead Space 3. Ironically, however, I played it a lot, and to this day sometimes go back to it (thanks to the Xbox One's backward compatibility). It's just that the things I felt the first two games excelled at, the third failed miserably at. The setting, the writing/story/characters, and the shooting were all underwhelming. I also think, even more so than Mass Effect: Andromeda, DS3 was a game to kill a franchise.

It pretty much has to be Andromeda. I feel like that would be quantifiable somehow. I think most people weren't even angry... just so terribly sad.

I feel like I'm generally well-informed enough that I don't end up being disappointed by too many games. I've never played most of the games listed here so far, and if I did, I bought them dirt cheap and set my expectations accordingly. No disappointment that way - just the chance to be pleasantly surprised.

But the NBA talk got me thinking about the NCAA Football franchise and how much it bums me out that legal/licensing problems have basically killed those games. I still enjoy firing up the most recent (2014, I think?) entry on my 360 and playing a few more games in my ongoing dynasty. What I wouldn't give for a new, updated version. Or even backward-compatibility for the games I have...

So...can the absence of a game count as my disappointment of the decade?

Mass effect Andromeda was truly terrible, but it made me realize how poorly the franchise has aged. The ultimate disappointment for me was GTA V. I spent hundreds of hours devouring the previous gta open world's, and the afterthought of a world that single player GTA V had was the ultimate indicator of paid crap multiplayer that would define the decade

"SIM. CITY. DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE DECADE!"

FUCK Mass Effect. They killed SimCity! They brought it out of cold storage and killed it in one fucking game!

Portal 2 or Ryse.

None of them are bad games (Portal 2 was good but always felt a little "off" to me) but they were disappointing as the last story-driven singleplayer games from once great studios before they disappeared into VR/multiplayer insignificance (from my POV). And no I will most likely not play HL: Alyx.

Thank god indie studios (and to some extent Bethesda with Doom/Wolfenstein) picked up the slack for PC singleplayer games over the last part of the decade.

Mass Effect: Andromeda. I had not played any Mass Effect games and was genuinely hyped for it in the weeks up to it's release. I had heard nothing but good things about the series but never owned a console/pc tho play it. Also I think that game looked really good in trailers and previews but just turned out really dull and riddled with bugs. I forced myself to play about 20hrs of it but soon realised it was better to move on to something else.

Final Fantasy 13 broke my heart.

I need to add a few more, to get it out of my system:

God of War (2018): while I liked the visual design, everything else was a disappointment, especially the Dark Souls/Bloodborne-inspired combat. The game was simply not fun to play. Choosing to play in the Story Mode made no difference at all. The combat was also boring in a general sense, because there was nothing interesting or fun about the combat upgrades, it was just so bland with nothing spectacular and cool. For me, this is the worst God of War game, in terms of gameplay. It was a big disappointment since I expected something fun.

Dirt Rally 2.0. While the physics are solid and challenging, it's not a significant improvement (or difference) over the first game. So I see no good reason for buying this game if you already own the first one, it doesn't really add anything new. Worst and most disappointing of all though, is that I did not feel I got a complete or finished product from the core game. This was due to - in my opinion - the unethical DLC policy implemented by Codemasters. It has resulted in me boycotting their games. DR2 was predominantly designed to be a cash-cow for the inflow of DLC, where the core game was purposely left sparse ... while still demanding premium price.

Rune 2. Despite being launched as a finished product, the game still played like a Beta version, with constant and frequent graphical issues and incomplete controller support. The developers, having been bought by Bethesda through a questionable process, have more or less abandoned this rather broken game, so fixes are highly unlikely. It was very disappointing because I really liked the core idea for the game, the concept, it was something unique while keeping true to the hack-n-slash formula of the first game. I still have hopes that a new developer can take over and fix the game, but we'll see.

MotoGP 18. I think it's hard to mess up a MotoGP game. I've played every single game in this franchise, and #18 is the first one I had to rate as low as 2/5. It ran poorly on the regular PS4 and the AI was the worst I've experienced in a MotoGP game. The developers tried to fix it, but it still did not run smoothly. So it was a huge disappointment for me, especially since I always buy these games at launch; they're a core staple in my gaming life. It was a big deal for me.

Forza Motorsport 4. One word: drivatars. The introduction of the drivatar system has more or less ruined the entire Forza franchise for me, starting with Forza 4. I loved Forza 3, and was hoping to get something similar. I understand using drivatars in the more arcade Horizon series, since it focuses on multiplayer anyway, but for me Motorsport has been more a single-player simulation game series, and thus I expect AI that behaves more like professional drivers, not tipsy online gamers.

Darksiders 3. Yet again it's a Soulsborne formula that cancels out the fun of a game. I feel it goes directly against what the first two games were about, and consequently doesn't feel like a Darksiders game to me, but a more colourful Soulsborne immitation. The developers tried to fix it through a Classic mode, but in my opinion it changes very little.

Doom (2016). The combat was great, but the level design was rather boring, it did not really feel like a Doom game in this regard. To me, one of the hallmarks of a Doom game is the intricate or complex level design, which made it fun to explore every nook and cranny. This game had very little of that, and ultimately left me disappointed. I expected a bit more.

Probably a lot of recency bias here, but boy was I let down by The Outer Worlds. It was my most hyped game of last year, and I wound up only putting in a listless 15 hours before getting bored out of my skull on Monarch and dropping it, probably for good. I replayed New Vegas a few months before OW hit and I was shocked by how much less OW had going on for a supposed spiritual successor coming out a decade later. Everything from combat variety to world building to art design to storytelling felt like a half-baked, safe first draft of something much more intriguing and ambitious. I'm still tentatively interested in seeing what an Outer Worlds 2 with Microsoft money looks like, but they're going to really have to step things up.

Honorable mentions to Star Wars Battlefront, which was just plain boring, and Just Cause 3, which was a repetitive slog in a boring world that threw out Just Cause 2's delightful emergent progression in favor of a rote challenge system.

@bonbonetti: Interesting. I really enjoyed ME2, and thought it was quite a bit better than ME1, but definitely a flawed game. I recall ME1 being strangely empty, with a lack of meaningful sidequests. Lots to explore, yes, but not much interesting outside of the main quest. ME2 took the concept and streamlined it by removing most of the open exploration and replacing it with more scripted story content, making for a tighter moment-to-moment experience. I wish they had found a way to make the exploration more meaningful, rather than basically ditching it almost entirely, but I prefer a lack of exploration to the unrewarding exploration of ME1.

I never felt ME2 was the masterpiece many felt it was. I liked the characters but the overarching story was not too interesting. It was yet more ancient alien invading nonsense. Why do I have to save the world (or galaxy) in every game? Games like The Witcher show how to do a more character-focused story. Not everything has to be about an existential threat to humanity.

Furthermore, I felt the story was not well integrated into the gameplay. Basically the game shifted predictably between two modes - a visual novel and a shooter. The visual novel part was usually interesting - just talking to people and making occasionally difficult dialogue choices. Then that segment would end and you would move onto the combat area, with little dialogue and lots of shooty shooty. The combat in these games was never great. It always felt like RPG combat, where your gun is a peashooter that just lowers a life bar a little bit. They hardly reacted at all to your shots - if there wasn't a life bar, you wouldn't know that you even hit them. Even the original Doom knew how to make enemies more reactive. Once you'd finished walking through a designated combat maze and shooting all the dudes, the visual novel part picked up again. The story always felt a little hamstrung by the need to find an excuse to insert these combat sequences in each mission.

Still, overall the game was great just based on the strength of the world and the characters. I loved finding out weird details about each alien race and culture. I never played ME3, but I am almost tempted to try it now.

I agree with a few of the options that have been mentioned previously here, but just to give voice to one that's, I dunno, not a huge game that I had huge expectations for, but one that really missed an important mark for me, I'd go with the Battlefleet Gothic games. I like WH40 fluff and I love the idea of capital ship combat, whether it's at the fleet level or just that feeling of sitting on a chair on a bridge and waiting to see the outcome of the orders you gave.

Battlefleet Gothic is a game about capital ship warfare that manages to mechanically get so much right, without ending up being an abstract representation - you can look at your big honking battleships with their big honking broadsides between battles. But in both games, the rate at which you begin to acquire the best ships is too slow and the underlying campaigns are so mechanically clunky and imbalanced. Like, if they had just dropped the whole grand strategy conceit and let it be a linear scenario-based game, it could have been everything, and instead it was just a tease. And it would have been a much better way to spend their obviously limited development budget.

Thank you for putting GTA V as the ultimate disappointment. I thought about a lot of games while reading all these but didn't find anybody listing GTA V.

I've spent so many hours playing San Andreas and GTA IV but GTA V just felt like it had no soul. Perfect example of why just adding more and more stuff does not always equal a better finished product. It was also the first GTA story I absolutely hated. The characters were not likable or relatable. San Andreas did not have a deep story and CJ wasn't the best character but that whole plot was better written than all of GTA V. That game just didn't do it for me and I'm not sure exactly why. On paper it is clearly the best GTA but it just didn't pan out. Not saying V was a bad game per say but I felt it was one of the biggest disappointments for video games

For me it’s certainly a toss up between ME:A and MGSV. I captial L love the Mass Effect trilogy. And the thought of a new one set somewhere else was exciting to me. The movement of the character also looked very promising. But the game was a real gut punch of a disappointment. It felt hollow, it lacked any real sense of place despite having really big areas that looked pretty good. In some ways, it felt more like a bad Dragon Age skin than a new Mass Effect game, and I even liked Inquisition a bit. I never finished Andromeda, I just couldn’t force myself to beat a dead horse. The game just wasn’t made for me.

MGSV had a similar issue, the thing I come to MGS for is story. The gameplay parts in between, part of me was fine with it being a tricky cumbersome mess. To it’s credit, MGSV plays very nice. Doing some of the missions I was having a pretty good time with the game. But as things progressed and the lack of story presented the way it used to be was just wearing on my patience. Even more when it was revealed that to beat the game you had to play the same missions again later on for some reason. I just couldn’t. So I dropped the game after about half the missions. I found my setup that was always successful, the game never forced me to switch it up, and the story was nowhere to be found. Just like Andromeda, it felt like a game designed for someone else’s expectations entirely.

@wollywoo: I can understand your viewpoint. I felt like it was designed for an entirely different type of gamer than myself, for people with different demands and expectations. So at the time I was even offended they named it "Mass Effect", and not some off-shoot title. I did expect some changes for ME2, but was not prepared for the extent of them. When you then see so many gaming sites praise the game as "the best X game ever", it strengthens your own standpoint in a way, as in "did you guys even play the first game?! how can this be better".

I'm surprised. Your opinions are valid, I just had not seen anyone not like this game. I hated GoW 3, but played through it just to finish the story. I thought I was done with GoW until people were saying how great this game was. If it wasn't for the axe, I probably wouldn't have loved this game so much. Sorry you didn't enjoy.

I wasn't "game breaking" level of angry with ME2, but I agree it wasn't as good as the first. Disappointed probably isn't the right thought, but I did at least enjoy it. I loved how ME1 achievements gave you abilities or boosts for your various created characters. I think it's the only game that really made achievements work with the game. I played through ME1 at least 5 times. I played ME2 & 3 once. Another big gripe was replacing the overheating mechanic with ammo. Oh and no Liara T'soni! WTF?! How are they going to remove my love interest from ME1?!

Also, your opinion is valid, but it's interesting how I had the exact opposite experience. I really liked GTA3. I LOVED GTA: Vice City. I gave up on San Andreas because I was bored. I finished GTA4 mostly because I didn't have much else on my 360 at the time to play. I could not put GTA5 down. Just enjoyed the whole thing. Again, different strokes for different folks, just find it interesting.

@lord-h: I'm glad someone else felt the emptiness of that game, the driving and shooting and world itself was pretty great, even had a ton of fun online with friends at first just taking sports cars into the mountains and goofing off, but the compromise of the single player for the sake of the online was just so plainly evident in the absence of all side activities/events that I could never truly feel at home. I still played a good deal of it but it is, in my opinion, the quintessential example of monetization in games destroying the immersion of games of yore. It did set the stage for Witcher 3 becoming my favorite game ever though.

Props to @ginormous76 for making sure to let everyone know their video game opinions are valid. It's very... validating!

breath of the wild for me. Have always loved the Zelda series and when I saw new console+ new mainline Zelda game, I was so excited. I knew right away something wasn’t right and about 5 hours, all my initial excitement was gone. I felt so bored and hated just having to walk around aimlessly.. I never find enjoyment or “wonder” in exploring big worlds with no real objective besides go to hyrule castle and beat the game. I tried it for about 15 hours and did one of the dungeons, just trying to convince myself that this game was good, but eventually I gave up. It sucks that I know I’m in the minority with this, but I hope they make a more traditional Zelda game again someday. Even the much hated skyward sword kept me engaged and I had enough fun to complete it. BOTW is my most disappointing game of the decade, and possibly of all time.

Mass Effect: Andromeda - I stopped playing when I reached a rusty, acid rain planet, where I got lost in a hotel made of junk?? Really can't remember because I was completely done with the story and repetitive game design at this point. There was one story bit I enjoyed where you talk to your comatose sibling via neural implant...thought that was some good sci-fi.

Honorable mentions: No More Heroes 2, State of Decay 2, The Walking Dead Season 2

@jsmith79327: Dang that sucks you weren't able to connect with it. Breath of the Wild may be my favorite game of the decade, but before it, I had never put more than 10 hours into a Zelda as I found them so boring and hand holdy.

You're definitely not alone in the disappointed by a new entry in a franchise because it eschews that franchise's traditions. I've never really had an issue with developers not sticking to tradition - outside of maybe Halo 4 multiplayer chasing COD multiplayer and abandoning the map control of weapon spawns that's so important to the push and pull of Halo.

@sloppydetective: yeah I don’t think I ever wanted to like a game more in my life than I did with BOTW... I think it just might be games with that “explore and find your own way without us holding your hand” element just don’t click for me. I find myself overwhelmed and it detracts from my overall experience. I didn’t care for the breakable weapons as well. I had a similar experience with outer wilds. After seeing how much the GB staff loved it, I decided to give it a shot and after several hours of exploring a couple planets and not being remotely interested in anything I found, I couldn’t go on with that either. I actually had more fun using an achievement guide and trying to get those because at least that gave me a direct goal to work towards lol

I didn't have an answer to this topic until a few days ago when i finished Devil May Cry 5.
It's not earth shatteringly disappointing, it's just that i haven't played very many disappointing games, but i'm a huge fan of the franchise and the 2nd half of DMC5 is pretty awful.
To sum up what i didn't like quickly:
Playing as V is terrible, i didn't mind it at first but they make you play as him a few times and it gets more annoying each time, especially the replaying of boss fights when he loses his minions, that was atrocious.
As the game goes on the fights with regular enemies slowly stop, which has always been the best part of DMC, it felt like i was just doing short sections of running into cutscenes or small boss fights.
Speaking of which the variety of regular enemies is weird, there are multiple enemy types who block melee attacks, multiple who can't be launched, and others with strict rule sets so when they mix them together in a fight you have to stop yourself from having fun to obey the rules or you'll be punished, which has always annoyed me in games, there's A LOT better variety in 4.
All the boss fights are bad, very basic pattern recognition and avoiding the stupid moves, that's another thing towards the end they start relying on "avoid the move that takes 60-80% of your health, instead of coming up with something more interesting.
I don't like how Dante controls once he gets the new sword, Swordmaster becomes "spam the ghost swords" which dominates the rest of the game.
They brought back the Cerberus nunchucks which was my favourite weapon in 3, but its Swordmaster attacks do more damage than the regular attacks so i never really got to use it, you also get it right at the end of the game so you barely even use it in the first playthrough.
Similarly i loved Ifrit in previous games, but the new gauntlets having stance changes and charging up and weird moves, wasn't for me.
I don't like Devil Breakers, Punch Line is alright but i just used the rest of them as bombs, i got excited when i found the one that gives Nero the awesome grabs from 4 but it just constantly breaks and is disappointing.
I should replay the game now that i have the weapons and Nero's old arm back, but i extremely don't want to play the V sections and i know that the 2nd half of the game is tedious and boring...
I'll finish by saying i really like the combat in general, the cutscenes are great and overall i like the game a lot, but it was disappointing.

Journey.

Hard to avoid the hype. The greatest game of all time etc. Sat down one afternoon to play it and it was just fine. Quite pretty but a fairly underwhelming game for me.

I'm hoping this is genuine. I know how easy it is to read a comment on a message board and take it as an attack. I just feel the need to state that I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions and tastes and that we can respectfully disagree or have different opinions (unlike what politicians what us to believe).

@superjoe Oh wow. NMH2 was in 2010! I was also greatly disappointed in that and after loving NMH. Though I would play NMH3.

@cikame I know exactly what you mean. Something just felt off about the game as a whole. I still love DMC1, I found DMC3 to be ok (better than 2 & 4), and I think DMC: Devil May Cry is the best in the series. I really wanted to love DMC5. I found it ok, but I liked how the story played out. I figured out from the beginning that V was Vergil. I didn't predict that Urizen was Vergil's demon half. And I was genuinely surprised and excited to learn that Nero was Vergil's son. Was also ecstatic that they referenced Vergil's time as Nelo Angelo in DMC1.

That's why I can't go as far as a lot of people on here with it. It did actually play by far the best for any ME game and in general it was really fun I thought in Multiplayer. For me it ended up being a cool co-op shooter expereience like a Pay Day or Vermintide, which is not what I expected or wanted but ended up still being fun.

Using all the classes in the co-op was interesting and varied and the combat with the jetpack moves handled really well.

The one issue with it really after putting a lot of time in was how cramped the maps for co-op could be and also that there weren't more, but that was after getting around 60 hours out of it.

@ginormous76: Not an attack! I apologize if you took it that way. I just noticed the similar phrasing on two posts and it made me smile. I really like how genuinely polite and helpful most folks are on these forums - especially compared to the cesspool that is the rest of the Internet (and especially gaming forums.) It is a breath of fresh air.

It's hard enough picking one out from the current generation much less from the decade. I'll just copy and paste what I said months ago, perhaps appending it a bit.

While I generally think it's a good game I have to say Horizon Zero Dawn. I was kind of bewildered by the hype around this game after playing it. Sure it has an exceptional look and pretty good main story but it is like a C+ open world game at best. Say what you want about the derivative design of Ubisoft's open world factory but those games are still made competently and iteratively. Horizon feels several steps behind even that in it's open world design despite the breathtaking visuals and cool lore. On top of that it has one of the most dull skill trees in a AAA game I've seen in years, and that's saying something when you take the aforementioned Ubi-games into consideration.

I feel like the lead up to this game had a sense of "this will single handedly justify the existence of the PS4Pro as well as 4K rendering". Again the art design is largely great, I don't see how you can argue against that but I don't know that it was worth crafting for a game with such a bland sense of exploration and progression.

@ginormous76: I admit the axe throwing was a cool thing, but I'm too much of a hack-n-slash gamer to enjoy (and learn) perfect blocking, parrying and dodging. I just don't have the patience and reflexes for it. I understand why people loved the game, but I was hoping there would some kind of gameplay setting that would work for someone like me. For me it's very hard to push through and complete an action game if I don't enjoy the combat, regardless of how good the rest of the game is. It's very much the opposite for me; if I enjoy the combat, the rest is not that important to me.

Honestly from an objective standpoint and the reactions I think that crown might go to No Man's Sky. So much hype that was dashed against the rocks of reality when the game finally came out. Whilst not all that surprising in retrospect it definitely took large parts of the gaming community by storm.

On the other hand that also became a success story as the developers used the money they made to hunker down and keep developing until the game has now reached a state that most people consider to be at least enjoyable and worth the price of admission if not quite reaching the heights of the hype that preceded it.

There's no definitive answer, but the two games currently at the front of my head are Undertale and Sometimes Always Monsters. In the former, I found the controls and the responsiveness of the rhythm games for the fights to be so abysmal I actually quit and uninstalled the game right before what is actually meant to be the final boss (bullet hell isn't fun if you're fighting the controls).

In the latter, SAM is borderline a scam. The first half hour shows off great promise, but it's a trick. After day one is over, you've got next to no say in the direction and the overall plot is very bad.

Why I was disappointed in both is because it was around the time when indie games were getting massive praise. Fortunately, plenty of other small titles were available to compensate.

Interesting how unique games like Oxenfree is listed as most disappointing. In my mind that game is the literal opposite of disappointing.

I can’t think of many recent disappointments myself, beyond maybe Yakuza 6 and Sekiro. I think Silent Hill Homecoming is probably the game has let me down the most out of all the games I have played as I at least had a lot of expectations and baggage going into this game.

Mass Effect Andromeda and Mighty Number 9 are the two that popped up in my head. I'd still play another Mass Effect game, but it was a bummer they missed the mark on that one by so much. Might Number 9 started out looking good then just got worse and worse. Mega Man 11 made up for that quite a bit though.

For me personally it was Final Fantasy XV. I was never big into FF but loved the XIII trilogy (I know). XV looked great from the previews and though I was disappointed that they dropped the Versus XIII stuff, I was still optimistic when it came out. Sadly it was unfinished and not that well designed, the combat being nowhere near as good as Lightning Returns (which set a new bar for ARPGs of this kind imo). All around a bummer, and I never felt compelled to check out the DLC since I felt so burned.

Maybe they've improved it since launch, but they had their shot and missed it so why should I put more time into it.

@thechris: I've found the little games with no real hype but with the expectations to be emotional and well written have almost always disappointed me because I want more games like that, but none of them have hit for me. In Oxenfree I found all the teens to sound how an adult nerd would like to remember themselves sounding at that age - so the dialogue (the crux of that game) felt very unauthentic. I'm also just tired of the teens stumble onto cosmic horror schtick and 80's nostalgia in general. The dialogue system in the game is kind of interesting but I don't remember them actually doing much with it, and if you don't like the writing, that system isn't going to be that impressive.