Mods adding content that looks nothing like the main gameThis is the reason I have problems with a lot of Minecraft mods. Most of the mobs from Mo' Creatures look like somebody just skinned an actual animal and stretched it tight over some cardboard boxes, which doesn't at all match with any texture pack that I've seen. Not to mention the glitchy UV mapping on some animals, leading to them having their faces on the side of their head.
I know this is a problem with all mods that introduce their own art assets, but I can't stand it when somebody doesn't even try to match the look of the game.
Forcing you to talk to charactersBasically a variant of unskippable cutscenes. In
Wind Waker, any time you accomplish something, the King of Red Lions feels the need to recite your objective in the longest-winded way possible, also tending to tell you things that you've already learned much earlier in the game. I can't play Twilight Princess yet due to
very strange controller problems, but I'm extremely pleased that the manual says you can skip cutscenes by pressing 'Start' twice.
Extremely long introduction/"easing in" periodsI don't have a problem with this in games like Half-Life, where there's a very deliberate pacing that pays off as the action very quickly heats up. I'm talking about when you've sunk half an hour into a game and you're still getting hint boxes and exposition. I believe Yahtzee said once that the first and last bits of a game are always the most important, and I definitely agree.