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[-Firestar-]

Auto run. I'M STARING AT YOU, MINECRAFT!  This is a staple. It angers me when it is not present. (unless it's ingrained as part of the mechanics like Diablo. Yeah, I'm sure I'm not making sense.)

Little things. I'm very addicted to little things, and little details that game makers actually put in the game. Look up Skyrim's TV tropes and be amazed:
-Sit down in a tavern and the waitress will automatically approach you and ask what you want to drink.
-Skeletons only get jostled by Fus Ro Dah because most of the force doesn't actually hit them but simply passes through the empty spaces between their bones. Draugr, which have preserved skin, however, can be knocked back with the full force of the shout.
-Sneak into a room with bandits and drop something valuable on the floor, like a gemstone. The bandits will argue with each other over the object, and eventually attack each other.
ect.

Going to also say character editors. Nothing breaks immersion than having a choice of 3 heads and what color your skin is. Champions Online is the best paper doll game I've played yet. Bonus points if you get NPC reactions positive or negative for what your character race is (Oblivion?)

edit: dangit. Sorry

[Levi]

I appreciate it when a game lets me Quit to operating system in less than two button presses.  I also appreciate it when they let me skip the intro bits when I turn on my game.

[Oliolli]

Quick Save and Quick Load.
I hate games with a checkpoint saving system with a passon, almost ruined Metro 2033 for me.
 
Jumping/Crouching in shooters.
I like the freedom to be able to jump over objects and crouch behind stuff in shooters. Shooters that take away those abilities just annoy me.

Health Packs.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. showed us the way to handle health packs by having you able to pick them up and placing them in your inventory. Hell, I don't even mind the old school style of just running over them. But regenerative health is just ... blah.

In short. Screw modern shooters. :<

These, and in addition two things for FPS games:

High enough difficulty level.
I don't want to be able to just run through all those dozens of enemy mooks, if I'm facing off against them I want to end up playing that part dozens of times before I beat it! That's where the joy of success comes from.

Iron sights and the possibility to hide crosshairs.
Just for that tiny hint of realism.

Yeah... I like S.T.A.L.K.E.R..

Regarding the difficulty level, it can work for strategy games too. Wargame: European Escalation managed to make it feel like an achievment when you beat a campaign mission.

RE: Health regeneration: Red Orchestra 2 has probably got the only good "health regen" mechanics out there. When shot, you either die or you bleed. If you start bleeding, you have to stop the bleeding or you die. If you can stop the bleeding. Light bleeding stops by itself, as long as you don't move for a while, medium bleeding kills you in a few seconds unless you apply bandages (keep in mind, whoever shot at you is probably still out there) and heavy bleeding... can not be stopped. You get about five seconds to shoot stuff as your screen fades to black.

[Kilroy the Grand]

A good vertical element in multiplayer FPS maps. If you make a level, use all 3 dimensions!

One of the worse games I have ever had the displeasure of playing, TWICE.

[ComradeGafarov]

Faction loyalty in weaponry.
I hate seeing games that have stupid stuff like Russians trying to kill me with American and French weaponry, of all things.
Weapons being loyal to the setting of a game is also a must for me. Devs putting stuff like Chinese and Peruvian weapons in a game that mostly takes place in western Europe is in such poor taste.

[Trapezohedron]

The ability to own shops and operate them - Because I totally want to sell junk at ridiculously expensive prices.

Procedural World Generation - One of the reasons I like DF, and just about every roguelike ever, but DF gets a special mention due to being mostly a strategy game with a roguelike mode also in.

Realism - I don't want to absorb a ton of bullets like a sponge, or go on a trip to another continent without eating.

[Kanil]

Games that favor more text-based dialog than less voice acted dialog. More is said in Baldur's Gate and Morrowind than Dragon Age and Skyrim -- reading it is entirely worth the effort.

Games that don't have the first several hours serve as an overglorified tutorial. Allow the player access to the core of the gameplay as quickly as possible.
In a similar vein, PvP focused games that have no grind portion. One player shouldn't have an edge against another just because he's played longer (beyond personal experience)

Games that do not have achievements. You should play the game to have fun, not to accomplish some arbitrary task.

First person games that are playable about as well with the HUD off or on. It's hard to convey as much information to the player, but merely conveying enough would suffice.

[lemon10]

Games that favor more text-based dialog than less voice acted dialog. More is said in Baldur's Gate and Morrowind than Dragon Age and Skyrim -- reading it is entirely worth the effort.

Seconded.

In games that let you have a party/squad, letting you have as many people as possible, as much choice as possible between them and as much differentiation between individuals. (eg. Baldurs gate having 6 people in your party (from tons of classes/muticlasses) at once is massively preferable to mass effect's 3 (from only three distinct classes)).

[Trapezohedron]

Games that favor more text-based dialog than less voice acted dialog. More is said in Baldur's Gate and Morrowind than Dragon Age and Skyrim -- reading it is entirely worth the effort.

Seconded.

Thirded. Seriously, I don't give a f**k why it doesn't have voice acting, just give me something that actually makes sense!

Morrowind's plot was actually worth reading compared to Oblivion and Skyrim, because it actually explained why most of the things are there, instead of saying that 'you might find (and you will) this MacGuffin in x cave, which is to the east of Hamlet Y'.

[NobodyPro]

Cutscenes. God, the cutscenes. Their presence made Saints Row 2 so enjoyable (only partly because they showed off my nifty character) and their absence from 90% of Borderlands almost ruined the game for me. Seriously, if Tanith hadn't gone mad and left her audio logs scattered everywhere I might have never finished.

The Euphoria animation engine and anything like it. Seriously, if you haven't played GTA:IV, Red Dead: Redemption or Overgrowth go do that now. I'll wait.

The smallest thing: junk files. Those little things I find forgotten in a game's data files. Unused dialogue, beta textures and development names. Valve are always good for these gems, as are Gearbox (especially Gearbox).

Thirded. Seriously, I don't give a f**k why it doesn't have voice acting, just give me something that actually makes sense!

I'll Forth that as long as we're not supporting scrolling text boxes before missions. Dialogue =/= infodump.

[Trapezohedron]

Did you say you like old bits of junk data in games? Here's something to keep you occupied.

[miauw62]

Humor
In many, many games you can have a kind of humor, it be cynical (portal 2), reference-based (terraria/tf2), humor is usually a good thing in games. Does not fit everywhere, but many games can have it.

Ability to change keyboard controls.
I use a azerty keyboard, and i dont want to change it for a game. if i see that i cant change my controls, i just stop playing the games.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Customizable difficulty levels.

Soldier of Fortune allowed me to do this, in addition to pre-made difficulties I could alter enemy lethality, spawn rate and other options as I wished. I would have been greatly pleased if Halo had allowed me to play with normal or heroic difficulty but with maxed out opponents.

Ease of modding

While I'm not the greatest modder myself, I can appreciate and enjoy efforts of others. Elder Scrolls, Civilization, Star-/Warcraft, Total War, loads of games have benefited from high quality modding communities.

Basically I like anything that gives more freedom to the players, unskippable, unsaveable and unreconfigurable stuff annoy me as a result. Giving me optional control over most aspects of the game is not a bad thing, forcing me to watch the same cut-scene over and over and to endure unintuitive control schemes on the other hand are.

[Mongol13524]

Games that do not have achievements. You should play the game to have fun, not to accomplish some arbitrary task.

Then don't go for them...? Accomplishing an arbitrary task is great fun for some people.

[GlyphGryph]

Humor
In many, many games you can have a kind of humor, it be cynical (portal 2), reference-based (terraria/tf2), humor is usually a good thing in games. Does not fit everywhere, but many games can have it.

There is no game that isn't made better by a bit of humour - though the type of humour and its frequency will obviously vary.