I think every gamer has played a game that on paper was an amazing concept and thought "holy shit this is awesome!" but when you begin to play it, you felt the execution was horrible, doubly so because you were so interested in the game's concept.

For me, that game was Always Sometimes Monsters, the little indie game promising consequences for your choices, which it does. But that is not my complaint.

My complaint was this:

[Spoiler Alert: For the entire video game plot!]

You are always forced to chase after your ex, even though i hate the idea. That is my one major complaint of the game. You lack the freedom to say "Fuck the past, Fuck my Ex, I am starting a new life!" and rebuild your life from the ground zero or your depression. Sure, it may have not been as epic or grandiose as the original games plot of a cross-country adventure but it would of been so much better for me as a player to role-play as my character.

And if the cross-country trip was necessary, it could have been one about self-discovery and truly figuring out what you want with life.

I just felt like this game had so much potential to provide realistic, great, and original storyline unlike before in previous video games yet messed it by forcing the player to a certain ending.

[Spoiler Alter: For the entire video game plot!]


So what is your great disappoint of a great idea.

Elder Scrolls Online

Loved the thought of being able to play ES with others... however they turned it into a typical MMO. I watched some let's plays, so disappointing

Pretty much every game with the same premise as Wing Commander: Privateer that has come out after it. All of them have promised great things, but none of them have managed to deliver and experience that is as good as, let alone overshadows, Privateer. Yes, it is my favorite game of all time... but I am being fair, here. I still play the game regularly, so I'm not looking through "nostalgia goggles". Of course, the biggest disappointment of all was Privateer 2, since it was supposed to be a direct sequel (not really), and got things all muddled up in the "open-world space sim" to "Wing Commander III/IV cinematics" ratio. I see games like Elite: Dangerous and Chris Robert's Star Citizen, and I cross my fingers... but I don't hold out much hope. It was Erin that made Privateer what it was. Chris was always the Wing Commander guy, it was his brother that seemed to make Priv something special. Only time will tell if something will ever truly compare with, or even outclass, my old favorite.

I think Tegel's Mercenaries could have really been something, a sci-fi Jagged Alliance before there was Jagged Alliance. Too bad it was so buggy that I never got past the second or third mission.

Aliens - Colonial Marines comes to mind. I didn't buy it because of so many bad reviews, which was disappointing enough bcuz Aliens is one of my favorite movies of all time. Also want to count Ultima Online. The Ultima series was so good, but UO was so full of bugs, incomplete content, lag, crashes, etc.

Daggerfall. Giant, sprawling world with changing political climate and full scale battles. What we got was medieval Doom: the RPG with randomly slapped together terrain, towns and dungeons where not much felt like it was changing at all.

Same here :(.

Really wanted to enjoy it...it just felt flat to me.

Deus Ex. Great story etc but really shit game play.

- "Die by the Sword" : Independently controlled sword arm with mouse and character with keyboard. Too hard to turn effectively, because analog control is relegated to the mouse for the sword, requiring keyboard for turning on top of other movement. To add insult-to-injury, the sword suffered slowdown under high-poly scenes rendering them impossible to control during, often getting you killed. Move-Recorder that allows you to store movement sequences in advance and use them in the game sounded like a good idea but was useless and probably saw little application in practice. I think I tried it once and quickly realized it wasn't going to make the other flaws any less glaring or the controls any easier.

Spore.

So disappointed. I loved the idea of a planet w/ creatures and ecosystems - but so disappointed. Turned out the planets didn't really matter (largely all the same once terraformed). The creatures really didn't matter (you just drop any random set of creatures on a planet ). And there wasn't much of an ecosystem beyond some disease that can cause collapse.

This would probably top my list too of high expectations being so disappointed.

This.

Spore is the quintessential example of a fantastic concept in development that completely failed to deliver on release. This is linked to the fact that EA decided to change the target demographic (and therefore the game) to players of The Sims about a year before release. The game was simplified and the graphics cartoonified, and in the end, what was released was a far cry from what had been demonstrated at every stage of development until then.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance

Atmosphere and story are great, but gameplay is horrible. Every piece of fmv sequence is earned with blood and tears.

As far as I've heard, this goes a bit for Wasteland 2 - though, from what I've seen and how I evaluate it, many people don't know what Wasteland 2 is all about and therefore cannot appreciate the game.
If I get the chance, I'll definitely play it.

Oblivion, pretty much for the same reason people described Daggerfall here. In short: too generic world, and enemy scaling reduce the game to a FPS...

EVERY stealth game after Thief 1, 2, 3.

Thanks for mentioning the enemy scaling. I totally agree!