My candidates for worst. Game. Ever:
Empire: Total War: I know they've apparently fixed it since release, but a game that's released shouldn't
need to be fixed. Horrific artificial intelligence issues, both with your units (I quote: "Shoot your damn rifles! *Click click click click click* For God's sake shoot them! They're charging at you! You couldn't have it easier!
Why aren't you shooting?!") and theirs (Another quote: "Okay, they've got artillery, cavalry, and their infantry regiments outnumber my entire army. If they open fire now, I'm done fo- wait...why are they all charging?"). The AI gave the impression that they used the battle AI from previous games, where close combat was the aim, rather than standing behind cover and shooting at each other. The new features, e.g. naval battles, were poorly done ("How in the seven hells did a sloop just blow up my First Rate?"). I could go on but this paragraph is probably enough to make people's eyes water as it is.
And all the usual candidates (Big Rigs and whatever else you people hate)
Games that have disappointed me after I bought them:
All of them: I don't know if anyone here has quite caught on to this yet, but developers lie. They talk about their game like it's the best thing since sliced bread because if they didn't, nobody would buy them. They only talk about the good parts, they never mention limitations of their engine, shortcomings with the features, or other bad things because that would discourage people. They exaggerate the features because then people will think it's original instead of thinking they stole it from Gears of War or whatever. So when launch day comes, hundreds of thousands of people buy the product and thousands of people rush online to whinge about how disappointed they are that X feature didn't live up to their expectations or how the game is "OMG so buggy did they even hire a single beta tester they suck I'm never gonna buy from them again let's boycott the company" (Tip: Don't read that last sentence out loud, you'll sound like an idiot)
But since it wouldn't be right if I didn't name some of the best examples:
ArmA: Armed Assault 2: Yeah, it's an accurate military simulator. The map editor is the most wonderful tool in the world. The modding community is huge and active. But the game has two major drawbacks, one I was expecting to encounter, one I wasn't. One, the voice acting. It honestly sounds like they got about 10 people in a room and had them all read out the same lines, then cut up the lines and put them together so you had lines in-game that switch between a gruff male voice, a soft male voice, a screaming male voice, a whispering male voice, and what sounds suspiciously like a female voice, all in the same line of dialogue. This, for such a realistic game, is somewhat immersion breaking. Two (And this one I was expecting), the map editor is more complex than DF. You need to know every single command in the game to get an AI creature to do something. And there
are lots and lots and lots....(Protip: Do NOT quote this post)
The Witcher: This was a disappointment all round, the game is proof that you should never,
ever trust a cinematic trailer. The controls are bad, the settings are confusing, the bugs are plentiful and the sex is awful.
Bioshock + Bioshock 2: Previously stated reasons. Although it was also laid low by the fact I guessed one of the major plot twists in the first five minutes
Atlas turning out to be a bad guy...nobody else saw that coming?
Most licensed games: With the possible exception of Peter Jackson's King Kong
Most games based on the Olympics: The instructions usually don't get much more complex than 'Mash Two buttons to run', and by God, did you have to mash them, I firmly believe no human being could keep up with the competition in the races. "Press this at the right time to break a record", and if you were half a millisecond off, you failed. "Press a certain button combo to do something, but do it QUICKLY" is the most complex instruction you got, and if you weren't INSTANT on that button press, you lost.
Fallout 3 + Oblivion: Previously stated reasons
Okay, I'm done.