OK, so I'm writing this right after spending a frustrating hour and a half playing the first mission of BF: Bad Company on Veteran, while at the same time trying not to die (for the "Staying Alive") achievement. I guess I should probably just go play the mission on easy for the achievement, but suddenly I realized- What am I doing this for? Not sure about any of you guys, but achievements have started to become a big part of the games I play (mostly 360, but Steam/PC too). Achievements are a great way to get us to do interesting things that we might not even think of without them, and I have no problem with the achievement system, but I am starting to feel that this "urge" to get the achievements is taking away the fun of these great games.
 
Now I have to admit I'm not big on farming for achievements involving large numbers (Seriously 2.0 .....), and I usually stay away from going too far out of my way in multiplayer to get certain achievements. But as far as the single player goes, I have a tendency to try to get as many achievements as possible. Take for example Fable 2, which I finished for the second time around two weeks ago. Thinking back from now, I find that much of the time spent playing was for achievements; in fact I had already planned out my first character with achievements in mind as soon as I started him! In the end, I got all of the achievements (Fable 2's are pretty well done IMO) and got a nice satisfactory feeling. However, I only felt this for a little while, and even though I didn't go back into my older games and start going for the achievements like crazy, I knew that the next game I got would involve achievements too.
 
So that was Bad Company, which I enjoy a lot, and find the single-player humorous in a great way and the multiplayer really nice too. When I got it, I pretty much told myself that I would not try to get all the achievements for it. I've stayed true to this promise so far, and there's no way I'm going to try to get the one for getting all the awards, but yesterday I found myself going back to the singleplayer (I had beat it on Normal already) and trying to beat some missions on Veteran. While the game's system of death and respawn in the single-player is pretty forgiving, I found it pretty frustrating to play through without dying for maybe 40 minutes, then get killed by some enemy on a turret that I didn't see. 
 
Now, what I'm wondering is what makes me want to get these achievements? I'm thinking that the mere possibility of getting the achievement without doing some silly thing like leaving my console on for the entire day "motivates" me to try and get it. When I see an achievement for beating a mission on hard, I say "I can do that!" and go for it, but while it's nice that I'm determined, I have to restate that it takes the fun out of games! I wouldn't call this an "addiction" to achievements (or maybe I'm just a completionist), but I'm just wondering if any others have or have had this problem. I've thought of some solutions, like checking out some games that I've never gone around to looking at or reading the plot for (ex. Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls Oblivion) so I will be more focused on the stories' lore and gameplay, and leave achievements for last; or getting a game WITHOUT achievements (PC I guess).
 
That's it for my post on my thoughts on achievements, I hope I can get some insight on how to get more "after-you-beat-the-campaign" fun without getting frustrated over achievements!