Couple more :
- Absolute lack of any sexual content/life ( aka American rightwinger hypocrisy ) - your heroes kill hundreds of people, maim, wound and ruin countless sentient creatures but god forbids if someone fucks anyone, there is absolutely no nudity or any kind of sexual life even in RPG's. Also conservatards going complete apeshit over naked tits in game ( GTA SA Hot Coffee comes to mind or Original textures to Oblivion scandal )/ any kind of "hard" content like sexual slavery, drugs, child killing, rape etc and no one cares about those many murders you commit in often various horrible ways.
- unequal difficulty level - whole game is a cake walk but then there is this one boss/mission/something that amps the difficulty level by 1000 % and basiucally ruins the entire game ( often for completely illogical and pointless reasons ).
- time limits - i just fucking hate them ...
- "good and brave and lawful way is the only possible way " in RPG's - bonus points to irritation when the Bad way is technically possible but with so much fake difficulty and stupid shit that its simply not valid/fun ( looking at you Baldurs Gate ).
- lack of any bonuses for best times/ratings etc, lack of New Game +, lack of cheats - i hate the recent modern trend of putting awesome items/weapons/characters in paid DLC and all those things only giving you some shitty achievements that only attention whores care about..
- too much of a leap between difficulty levels aka Normal = too easy, hard= too hard ( im looking at you XCOM Enemy Unknown 2012 ).
As far as sexual content. Id have no problem with it being in, but I think that with the current rating sytem itd be hard to make anything more than a niche game. I would like to keep 'teen' games around, and they could have implications around. But to make an adult game and ask children not to play is odd . . . in our society.
Marketing says that the larger the target audience the more money, and I think thats won out. More money in less sex. Except when not, because we still get those over;y sexualized games. Like sickeningly so. Bloodrayne, or w.e.
On difficulty . . . since I play on hard to begin with, I often find myself wanting a 'real' setting. One where one shots do happen to you and where enemies dont take 50 shots while you can only take 3. The idea that more health=harder is finally tarting to fade some I think . . te be replace with mechanics such as regenerating life and bonuses for arbitrary stuff. -Like best time ratings
Bonuses only work on games where the point is to be the best, fastest, etc. Rewards are nice, but when you hand them out like cookies I find it immersion breaking. Everyone does not need a trophy, and behavioralistic rewarding needs context.