Top 3 Biggest game disappointments

[Shootandkill]

SWTOR: Not because I hate it or anything. I thought the story was fantastic, but it definitely isn't worthy of being called an MMO

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl: It was not paced well at all. It made it extremely grindy, coupled with lackluster pokemon, I just found it very bad. Compared to all of the other Pokemon games... objectively it was pretty good.

Cataclysm: It just wasn't well thought out. They focused too much on the leveling experience that the endgame fell short. Plus, I hated Firelands and Dragon Soul's themes. I just didn't really enjoy Cataclysm.. which would explain why I was subbed for around 6 months total during Cata.

[Jayded1]

DS and SW were and are not bad games. Duke Nukem isnt on this list? Really. Your taste is suspect.

[panterarules]

1. Might and magic 9
2. Mortal Kombat 4
3. Civilization 5

All franchise gutting games. Took MK another 7 (?) iterations to get back to it's former glory.

[Bokor]

1. Fable 2 or really any of them except the first. They started with a good base but failed to build on it and of course made outlandish promises they couldn't even come close to delivering. They just polished it up and didn't fix the mistakes.

2. La Noire. The face technology was the only good thing and even that wasn't too great. There were a few good stories in it but the gameplay was dull and unoriginal. I know it's not GTA but at least make the free roaming interesting. It just felt like a time filler driving to different crime scenes.

3. Borderlands. It was hyped up by so many people but this was the first game I wanted to return after five minutes. The levelling system felt clunky and stifling, the story was a horrible mishmash when it could have been so interesting given the setting and the combat was designed to annoy rather than satisfy.

Dishonourable mention to Mass Effect 3. Like so many I was duped into believing I had a choice when really what I did meant squat outside who I choose to roll around on the floor with, and even then you feel screwed over.

[nightshark]

Play Civ 4 a few times then play civ 5. Civ 5 is so freaking boring. Civ 4 is a much more in-depth and intelligent game.

I dunno if my attention span for games has gone down since I was 12, but from the get-go I found Civ5 incredibly boring. I made it to about the 20th turn before deciding it was a snorefest and uninstalling. I don't know if it would've been different trying out Civ4 but I doubt it. As a kid I played a buttload of hours of Civ2 and quite a few of Civ3, so not sure why I disliked this one so much.

My biggest disappointment in gaming was the third installation of Lemmings (chronicles/whole new world of lemmings). Loved the first 2 games, third one was terrible and they never made another.

[Bokor]

I dunno if my attention span for games has gone down since I was 12, but from the get-go I found Civ5 incredibly boring. I made it to about the 20th turn before deciding it was a snorefest and uninstalling. I don't know if it would've been different trying out Civ4 but I doubt it. As a kid I played a buttload of hours of Civ2 and quite a few of Civ3, so not sure why I disliked this one so much.

Yeah Civ 5 wasn't really that great compared to 3 or 4 or even 2. If you follow my sig link I wrote a review about it that you're free to ignore or agree with.

It just felt like they removed all the interesting parts.

[DJKalteraphine]

Dragon Age II is the only game that comes to mind.

[Borfl]

1. Diablo 3
2. Cataclysm
3. Skyrim

Silent Hill Downpour, Paper Mario Sticker Star, and Worms Revolution were pretty big disappointments, I really wanted to like them.

Sticker Star isn't like Paper Mario 1 or 2 at all, I have to force myself to play through it because its just not fun.

Worms Revolution is just garbage compared to Armageddon. There's really nothing Revolution added that was good or didn't have that was better in Armageddon. Not to mention DLC on fucking weapons.

Amnesia was also pretty disappointing, I got past the flooded basement and was too bored to continue. Penumbra series is much better.

[edgecrusher]

If you can't handle people disliking games (genuinely or disingenuous) that you like, don't hang out in this thread. There's no need to go after others with personal attacks for having different opinions, and there's no need to go after fanbases either. Keep it civil or this bus is getting pulled over.

[inboundpaper]

1. Halo: Reach, the story was fun, but it really, really could have been done better, even with just a few dialogue changes. Reach's multiplayer was like, free crutches for noobs.

2. The last 5 minutes of Mass Effect 3, really, the game was awesome, right until the last like 5 minutes.

3. Skyrim, I like the game, but they keep oversimplifying the series.

[Viertel]

Latest survey it was >300k, which is still small mind me, but for a MMO born on a console and later brought on PC over 10 years ago it's still quite some number, if you ask me.
If you're interested FFXI peaked at slightly over 1,5m paying customers.

No, they're floating around 150K players. Their highest population broke slightly over 550K the months before WoW was released, but due to terrible design decisions in Chains of Promathia and WoW's launch they lost a good majority of that. The tri-Abyssea pack brought the population from ~100K to 200K but then the turnaround of design philosophy *(i.e. Tanaka focused on FF14 during Abyssea's launch -- which players loved -- and when that bombed he was returned to FF11 and began to make choices that pissed people off).

Final Fantasy XI *never* had 1.5 million paying customers. Those announcements were for 1, 1.5, and 2 million player *characters*, not the number of people playing the game. FFXI was well known to have well over 75% of its population using all 16 character slots on an account due to gardening early on and then massive storage issues later.

[Faldric]

My biggest dissapointment in the latest years was Dragon Age 2. Promised so much and delivered so little.
My Number 2) is Cataclysm. It started of great. With the harder dungeons, some non push over normal modes and new designs. I guess my dissapointment is even greater because I really liked it at the start. But with each nerf they also nerfed my fun big times.
My Number 3) is Gothic 3. At least the bugs where good laughs.

[Thundermoose]

1. Mass Effect 3
2. Dragon Age 2
3. Any Halo

[rainiothon]

I don't think I'm qualified to pick the three biggest gaming disappointments, but here's a few disappointments from a personal perspective:

Dragon Age 2: "You'll have to be more specific. I <insert action here> a lot of <insert subject here>."

Turok Evolution: So Turok 3 was pretty ropey, but it held together. Evolution was much more ambitious and looked very promising but sadly turned into a mediocre dull failure. And then Acclaim failed.

Deus Ex: Invisible War: A really mediocre and generic sequel, in danger of overshadowing the greatness of the original. Human Revolution was a decent game, but if Deus Ex: Invisible War never happened then it would have been even better.

[Nebthet]

Guild Wars 2, it's been awesome for a few days, but a huge disappointment after 2 weeks, realizing how it had me super bored already.

Battlefield 3, due to a netcode that was beyond laughable (for the first months at least, then kinda improved - still managed to get my interest down).

Dota 2, due to its everything-server sided actions, with unacceptably high pings, make it really a disaster to me, being used to HoN.

[McNeil]

I think I had summed my top 3 ''failed games'' list before, but my dissapointment list is about the same:

1. Diablo 3 - explained earlier
2. Cataclysm - explained earlier
3. C&C 4 - explained earlier

Amnesia was also pretty disappointing, I got past the flooded basement and was too bored to continue. Penumbra series is much better.

Before the flooded basement, you never actually encounter any monster that can harm you. The game gets much better after the basement. But I agree Penumbra is f*cking amazing, especially Black Plague.

[Verdugo]

Before the flooded basement, you never actually encounter any monster that can harm you. The game gets much better after the basement.

Once you start to encounter them, you will notice flaws, like why the hell cant they see you behind that crate.

Whole "you will go insane if you look at them" thing was just put in as an attempt to hide those mistakes.

And later, you will learn the pattern. Grab plot coupon, monster spawns, hide, wait until tense music stops, proceed. SH: Shattered Memories did this much better, you really feel that you cant hide anywhere (and you really cant, permanently anyway).

[Frunken]

1) Smash Bros. Brawl.
It's been years since playing it so I can't recall all the reasons it was a letdown. Lack of some old characters while new ones seemed half done, worthless single player campaign, tripping, forced items, weak maps, horrible online play, fundamental changes to characters. Overall it just didn't have the longevity of Melee and the original. Didn't help that I bought a Wii almost solely for it.

2)Kingdom Hearts 2.
The first one was the first game I had ever beaten and what turned me on to RPGs. I waited in anticipation for 2 and the final product was just boring. Breezed through the entire game only dying once or twice, a weak storyline (I can't remember if it made no sense or made perfect sense but was just very dull.) Again this was a long time ago so my memory is fuzzy, but I think the only thing I liked about it was the introduction of fusing with another character. Also while I loved the herculean arena in the first one, the changes in the second killed the fun.

I can't think of a specific #3. Something like Prince of Persia 2, Jade Empire, FFXII, SW:KOTOR 2, Pariah, GTA: San Andreas and 4. Just games I had high hopes for that I played because of expectations rather than enjoyment, most either tried to change too radically, or tried to do too much and the gameplay suffered.

[Still Rampant Rabbit]

Diablo III

Age of Conan

Far Cry 2

[JustintimeSS]

DA2
The Ending to ME3 (not the whole game)
DNF