The Most Disappointing Game Ever?

The original Crysis.

Crackdown 2. They basically just took Crackdown 1 and released it again, but made it more boring.

ME1 - Heard some great things about the ME franchise, played this and I just did not understand. It had a nice setting, but the actual gameplay was borderline terrible, and plagued with some technical issues that just made me have to give up halfway through.

Any GTA - I keep giving them a shot, and I keep strongly disliking them, despite all the praise they get.

DA:O - I haven't played the sequel yet, but DA:O wasn't bad...just mediocre. It had a great cast of characters, but an overarching narrative and story that seems pretty trite and overdone to anyone that has read a decent fantasy novel in their life.

I guess it just seems that I have maybe different standards for RPGs, and a lot of WRPGs that get hyped and lauded just seem...terribly boring to me. As for GTA well...except Infamous I've almost never found an open world game I like. Yet somehow, I keep going into these games pretty interested and keep coming out very very disappointed.

Mafia 2
Crysis 2
FarCry 2
 Crysis 2
Fable 2

lots of things with 2 in the name in fact.

checkers

seriously fuck checkers

L.A. Noire easily.

Why isn't this forum post under Dragon Age 2? Someone should change it because obviously that's the most logical answer.

Borderlands ranks pretty high.

Alpha Protocol, Spore, Dragon Age 2

@Slaker117: Hey dont apologize, you dont like the games. If anything I am sorry you do not see the great things others see in these games. I can get LA Noire, its story falls apart in the final act, and it is a type of game not everyone will enjoy. Uncharted 2 though I have no excuse to tell you. I thoroughly enjoyed that game. I must have beat the campaign 3-4 times and have about 30 hours or more on the multiplayer. It is easily one of the best games I have played this generation, it is a shame you can't enjoy the game the way I do.

Both of the DS Zelda games. It wasn't until about 3/4 of the way through Phantom Hourglass that I decided the stupid dungeon that you have to keep coming back to was bullshit. I had never made the decision to never finish a Zelda game before. When they announced that Spirit Tracks would take away the repetition of that dungeon, I was excited. Then, I found out that the train segments were garbage.

It really sucks, because they looked great and I loved the stylus controls. There were just fundamental design issues that made both of them not fun to me, which is something that I've never said about a Zelda game and I hope to never say again.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, the game was fantastic, but man was I bummed out when you stopped playing as Snake.

The last two games I bought and remember aggressively disliking would be Mirror's Edge and the Prince of Persia reboot.  EDIT: The Force Unleashed was also hella disappointing, but I thankfully rented that.

Lots of people mentioning Borderlands. This was a game that I would nominate as a pleasant surprise--I have to wonder what everyone's expectations were going in. Maybe you weren't playing with friends?

I'm gonna say:

Hellgate: London

Mafia II was pretty damn disappointing. I remember being so jacked for that game, and it's "open world". 
When it came out, I found out that it wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I expected. 
 
Red Faction: Armageddon was also very disappointing. It basically took out everything that I liked about the first game. 
At least I didn't buy this one.

Crysis 2

Dragon Age: Origins. What could of been a cool dark-fantasy game ended up being a generic high-fantasy setting and story.

Bioshock. The setting was great but I hate how that game plays. 

I can understand why LA Noire is surfacing a lot in this thread, even though I like the game.  For me, the biggest disappointment this gen is Bayonetta.  This is more to do with the universal praise the gaming press gave it upon release, with near perfect scores across the board.  It's a solid enough game, sure, but not the fightng nirvana I had been lead to believe.
 
Crackdown 2 is another good call, as it pissed away all of the good will that the original had garnered.  
 
Oh, and no Most Disappointing list can be complete without Black Ops.

Nominees Are =

Fable 3

Duke Nukem Forever

Dragon Age 2

Winner is...

Duke Nukem Forever - Seriously, I knew this game was going to be horrible and it far surpassed my expectations in the wrong way. Criminal to charge 59.99 for it.

I am never disappointed.

Halo: Reach

Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena was one, Far Cry 2 another, and I guess Dragon Age 2.  I LOVED Dragon Age Origins but damn, it's taken me since the game came out to put even ~10 hours into that game.  I loved the Riddick demo and thought I would love the game, but no, I got bored as hell and didn't want to touch that thing after like 2 hours.  Far Cry 2 was awesome, but there were just some things that really made the experience be less than what it should have been.

Dragon Age 2: I was cautiously optimistic for it, but called long before release that the whole game taking place in the one place would more than likely kill the game. Characters were shallow and pointless (except Varric) and the story was disjointed and lazy, with no clear goal to work towards.
 
L.A. Noire: Great start and concepts, but it just didn't work, interrogations were painful, and it went on for far too long for a convoluted experience. A huge city that was created as accurately as possible, and not a damn thing done with it...*sigh*
 
Halo: Reach: Again, a great idea, but trying to force me to care about a bunch of 'characters' who we all knew wouldn't be around for the entire game was like fighting a losing battle. Also a severe lack of scale and importance was a major disappointment. 

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Yeah the fact I was stuck with Raiden instead of Snake was a bummer but what was even worse than that, not getting the sword sooner, and how the story was basically revolving around making this whole simulation of the original game's scenario... just... bleh

Off the top of my head, Final Fantasy XIII. The story and characters weren't particularly interesting and the leveling system felt like a dumbed-down version of the sphere grid from FF X. It wasn't a bad game, but I expected much more from it.

The only game I've ever been truly disappointed with was Fable 2. I generally don't let hype get to me but in that case I was a bit over hyped and really disappointed.

Game's alright but we all probably know the problems with it- shame Fable 3 didn't fix anything, but I don't know that for a fact. I wont play any Lionhead games anymore.

Red Dead Redemption 
 
That game is so damn boring 

Dragon Age 2!!! I don't think I'll even buy 3 if it ever comes out.

The only game I've ever been truly disappointed with was Fable 2. I generally don't let hype get to me but in that case I was a bit over hyped and really disappointed.

Game's alright but we all probably know the problems with it- shame Fable 3 didn't fix anything, but I don't know that for a fact. I wont play any Lionhead games anymore.

Lately the games I looked most forward to have been big disappointments. Spore and Metroid: Other M were huge busts in my eyes.

Spider-Man 2 on the PC.
 
Mostly my fault, but I was expecting the awesome console version and instead got a kiddy Spider-Man game.

Brutal legend

Ocarina of Time 
 
Yeah, I'm the one guy on the planet who doesn't like this game. The previous games were all about freedom for me, freedom to explore and chose to do a side-quest if I wanted or search for extra hearts, bombs etc. Ocarina of Time put you on a scripted path with not much freedom, and in doing so, killed the soul of Zelda, and I'm sad to see more recent Zelda games going down the same path, most notably Twilight Princess.

@Slaker117 said:

I bought a PS3 a few weeks ago, with Uncharted 2 being a big reason why. After playing through it, I really don't understand all the praise. It's not a bad game by any means, but it just felt... standard. Besides the graphics, nothing really stood out about it, and even those aren't mindblowing. It's more cinematic than most games, but not much more fun to play. After hearing so much about how great it is, I can't help being extremely disappointed with how boring the game was to me. Also really did not care for LA Noire. That was a pretty big bummer after getting hyped up by all the reviews. Again, these are not bad games, but given how much they were built up, definite disappointments.

I totally see your point,so many gammes can be much too oeverhyped and I really thinking is gonna come down to Modern Warfrare 3 and its performance. I really hope it good. Been trying too avoid as much of the major cover of the foe the simple purpose fo having the game speaking for itself.

Fallout: New Vegas.

@AlisterCat said:

I am never disappointed.

I'm always disappointed.

To be honest, I didn't really get much out of Chrono Cross's gameplay, and the story was a tad convoluted at times (Chrono Trigger is my favorite game of all time). However, the soundtrack is magnificent, I adore the characters, the aesthetics of the game are incredible, it's just the gameplay that is fairly jarring.

ActRaiser 2 is an awful follow-up to ActRaiser. Whereas one was incredibly inventive and fresh, the other was a rote, side-scrolling action platformer (with unfair difficulty due to stiff controls).

I really didn't like Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time very much. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is one of my favorite games of all time, but Partners in Time didn't really live up to it. There aren't very memorable circumstances and jokes, and those that are memorable are memorable for the wrong reasons (the "leet Hammer Bros").

Those are three that I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are a lot more.

@Lemonhead said:

Ocarina of Time Yeah, I'm the one guy on the planet who doesn't like this game. The previous games were all about freedom for me, freedom to explore and chose to do a side-quest if I wanted or search for extra hearts, bombs etc. Ocarina of Time put you on a scripted path with not much freedom, and in doing so, killed the soul of Zelda, and I'm sad to see more recent Zelda games going down the same path, most notably Twilight Princess.

I didn't really like Ocarina of Time for different reasons. I played it (to completion) for the first time on the Virtual Console, and that game has not aged well. I really want to try out the 3DS remake to see if that one has been touched up. Poor camera, stiff controls... it wasn't an enjoyable experience.

Final Fantasy XIII

State of Emergency. 
 
GTA 3 was new and mindblowing, and I couldn't wait to get my hands on the next Rockstar release. 
 
...then it turned out to be that pile of shit.

Modern Warfare 2 for me, I was expecting infinity ward to come out and blow me away again but instead they came out with a game that played like it was designed for little kids. Too many reskins for the call of duty franchise !

Definitely MGS4. 

Sonic 3d..... Why?? Cause it is not in 3d.

recently? Wolfenstein. while the story mode was entertaining and fun, the multiplayer was poorly designed. being the main reason why i purchased it, the MP was full of technical issues and massive connection issues that completely broke the mp. it sucks because the objective based maps were back and looked pretty decent, but the issues were so bad in the MP that it was unplayable. 

@Slaker117 said:

I bought a PS3 a few weeks ago, with Uncharted 2 being a big reason why. After playing through it, I really don't understand all the praise. It's not a bad game by any means, but it just felt... standard. Besides the graphics, nothing really stood out about it, and even those aren't mindblowing. It's more cinematic than most games, but not much more fun to play. After hearing so much about how great it is, I can't help being extremely disappointed with how boring the game was to me. Also really did not care for LA Noire. That was a pretty big bummer after getting hyped up by all the reviews. Again, these are not bad games, but given how much they were built up, definite disappointments.

You can't just play the game sitting and waiting for something to just take your breath away. You just have to play it and enjoy it for what it is. I thought Uncharted 2 was the most amazing PS3 game I've ever played.

@Slaker117 said:

I bought a PS3 a few weeks ago, with Uncharted 2 being a big reason why. After playing through it, I really don't understand all the praise. It's not a bad game by any means, but it just felt... standard. Besides the graphics, nothing really stood out about it, and even those aren't mindblowing. It's more cinematic than most games, but not much more fun to play. After hearing so much about how great it is, I can't help being extremely disappointed with how boring the game was to me. Also really did not care for LA Noire. That was a pretty big bummer after getting hyped up by all the reviews. Again, these are not bad games, but given how much they were built up, definite disappointments.

You can't just play the game sitting and waiting for something to just take your breath away. You just have to play it and enjoy it for what it is. I thought Uncharted 2 was the most amazing PS3 game I've ever played.

I'm a console gamer and pretty much every PC shooter that comes to consoles disappoints me. I hated Crysis 2, didn't like F.E.A.R., didn't like Far Cry and didn't like what little I played of Half-Life 2 (although I like HL1). Alpha Protocol was a pretty big disappointment but I think the biggest disappointment for me was Red Dead Redemption. No one was more hyped up about that game than me and when I played it it was everything I wanted it to be and it was everything I was expecting, yet I still just couldn't get into it for whatever reason. I recently started playing it again (for the first time in a year) and I'm pretty much just forcing myself to beat the game cause I'm not really having much fun.

Final Fantasy 13 was said earlier, that pretty much sums it up!

Spore. It even met a lot of its potential in the form of the Creature Creator (which is still pretty fun to dig out every now and then). That, perhaps, made it even more disappointing when the actual game turned out to be too simple and didn't seem very much like the 40-minute demos Will Wright presented all those years ago.