Simple thread: what was the most recent game you played that turned out to be a complete disappointment?

For me, I would have to say it was Odin Sphere for the PS2.  The art style was everything I thought it would be and more.  It is seriously one of the best looking games I have ever seen.  The sprites and attention to detail are just absolutely amazing.  That all being said, the gameplay is pure crap and eventually just comes to a point where you never want to play again.  

I started playing the game on the medium setting and it was just ridiculous hard.  The normal stages could be gotten through with a lot of effort and the bosses were just insane.  So I set the game to the easiest setting, the one that the game says is for sitting back and enjoying the story, and it was still incredibly hard.  Getting to the bosses and mini bosses were bad enough, but you would spend 30 minutes on a mini boss only to get it to half health, die, and start all over again. 

 This isn't just a problem with me, everyone I've talked to that has played this game has had trouble with the difficulty.  Some of the people ended up playing through the first book, a few even went a little further and figured out some tricks to make it playable, but most just quit the game.  I really wanted to enjoy this game because of the fantastic art, but the game was just hard for hard's sake and that's horrible design.  

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Too much reading involved for a FPS when you're introduced to a new mission, and the lag is atrocious. At least they are addressing the reading bit by providing a patch that turns the game into a giant sandbox.

Hmmm.

Need for Speed:Carbon on 360. NFSMW was fantastic. It was the first NFS game I played, and I had high hopes for Carbon. Unfortunately, Carbon was a huge step down in terms of gameplay. The police chases were worse, and the race modes sucked.

Battalion Wars. I had heard really great things about this game, and I found it NEW in the box for $10, so I picked it up. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a half-assed RTS with severe issues in control, friendly AI, and interface, and it couldn't quite pull off the cartoony feel it was going for either.

Mario Party 8 wasn't as good as I expected. It was average for me at best.

I can never ever play that game alone and even with two people it kinda felt crappy, you really need like 3-4 people for that game. 

Condemned on the XBox 360 as some people raved about this game being so tense. I thought the game was actually quite boring and repetitive and the gameplay below par compared to previous experiences on the PC like with Half-Life 2 (excellent) or even Doom 3 (OK).

Overall although I think Gears of War is a nice game it was a huge dissapointment for me as well considering all the hype surrounding the game. The main characters were truly uninspiring for me, I expected to be wowed by some end boss battles which never actually happened, IMO the Beserker was the best effort in the game. At one point I saw a huge enemy in the background and got excited about battling the foe only to be dissapointed by a FMV cutscene when approaching. Short single player campaign with very restricted environents to wander around and some annoyingly unimpressive moments like the end game boss and light gun tank part of the game. IMO Resistance Fall of Man is a much better game with a much better story line and main characters, better vehicle sections, longer lasting fun, more impressive boss battles, less stupid enimies, better online multiplayer, better weapons, etc. IMO the cool thing about Gears is mainly some fancy graphics (good textures and lighting).

Castlevania Portait of Ruin was a little of a dissapointment for me as well considering the hype. I mostly cherry pick the games which receive good reviews, so I am sure there are much worse games out there than the ones mentioned above.

It isn't that hard... remenber that it is an action rpg and not a beat'em up... the trick is to replay a lots of stages and eat a lot food so you can increase your health and the psypher power. Also is a must to use alchemy to create napalm, blizzard and poison. It's not like GoW that you simply advance pressing "square" and you finish the stage. I had to admit that the first boss was pretty tough because you don't have enough healing itmes but it also needs a lot of skill and patience, sometimes you have to retreat to earn phozon fron the minions so you can replenish your "magic bar". It took my 8-9 hours to finish the first book, gwendolyn was lvl 37-30 and i am playing the second book.

I admit that it's not and easy game but it's fun and it isn't impossible, you just need a bit of skill a patience.

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My last dissapoinment was GoW2, i though it would last a little bit more thanthe first  GoW. They are great games but too short. I would have mix GoW and GoW2, and the realize GoW a 20+ hour game, with really good graphics and storyline.

 I'm going to comment on what you said. Condemned to me was pretty lame too, I think the hype was really cause it was a launch game much like PD:Z, overhyped and under delivered. 2nd one might be good.

Gears' story sucked, but I went in expecting that so I wasn't disappointed. Boss fights, yes: this game was very weak on the boss front and that is why I prefer the RE 4 single player over it by a lot.

On the other hand, honestly I think Resistance is a good game but I like it a lot less than Gears. The levels sometimes were so short and underwhelming and the presentation of the story through those pictures and the woman's voice over was just lame. By the time I got through the game I really never wanted to play it again on single player it was just boring to me. The multiplayer is a lot better though.

C:PoR I won't comment on because I have a Castlevania bias and I like almsot all of 'em (not the 3D PS2/Xbox crappy one though) but Dawn of Sorrow was better than PoR. 

StarFox Assault, simply boring

I really love the N64 version (With Rumble Pack, yeah!!!), but this one is just too boring.

Dude, Condemned was awesome. Such a visceral experience. I guess it just isn't for everyone. I love survival horrors I must admit, so I have somewhat of a predisposition. I played it on PC also, which might have changed things.

Grandia II and Suikoden IV were both kind of disappointments. Grandia II was bad enough that I will never play III. It was just worse in every way compared to the first one. Suikoden V is luckily looking to be a better game than IV was.

O yeah, biggest disappointment though was definitely Perfect Dark Zero. My friend raved about it, but I wasn't very pleased when I actually played it. I loved the first one too. Rare needs to get it together. It was a launch title, but so was Resistance, which I absolutely loved. Go go Insomniac.

Resistance vs. Gears is a toss-up for me. Gears loses miserably on story. I never got to play the multiplayer, so I will pass judgement on that. Single player was just plain fun though even if it was fairly short. Resistance isn't as revolutionary as Gears though. I would say it is a more "balanced" experience in all. The guns were pretty damn awesome, and I though multiplayer was very well-tuned.