I can't recall anything that would really fit the thread, but my biggest disappointment might have been buying Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons thinking I could play it with keyboard controls or DInput PS2 controller. It looked good and I really wanted to play it, but repeating the beginning countless times, fiddling around with the controls, then trying to use some third-party program to emulate XInput, and failing again and again to make it work in an acceptable way almost killed my initial enthusiam, I was sorely disappointed and even resented the game for it a bit. I had been aware that the game was meant to be played with a gamepad, but at the time I only had those PS2 controllers and not being an expert on gamepads, I naively thought those combined with an adapter for use on PC would be enough. And when it turned out it wasn't, I read that keyboard controls are supposed to work, too - some still say they do, but for me the first challenge with the elevator winch right at the beginning made them seem frustrating to the point of game-breaking. This disappointment was so big that at some point when I was in a bad mood for other reasons, I grudgingly bought an Xbox controller to finally be able to play the game. That was pretty extreme, but I never regretted *this* purchase at all. I still think you shouldn't have to buy a gamepad to play a game on PC, but I also learnt that it can be fun to use one, and I've grown quite fond of it now and use it for lots of other games.
A game that was an actual letdown for me, although not at such a dramatic level, was Richard and Alice. At the time of its release it was highly praised for having a mature story or something, and I bought it in the hopes that it would be special somehow, and maybe even close to Wadjet Eye games or To the Moon, but I ended up hating it. People criticized the graphics, but as a fan of AGS freeware, I thought graphics were secondary and I was ready to believe that it could be great regardless, but gameplay and story/writing are actually much worse than the graphics, IMO. The dialogues are very longwinded, you just click and click and click through them as if it was a visual novel, not what I thought the clicking in point-and-click adventure was about. Puzzles are few and simple, but the walking speed is so slow that it makes everything feel like a chore. The story is incredibly bleak and kind of pointless rather than mature, it didn't really offer any food for thought to me. But meh, whatever. Fortunately, most people might not even have heard about the game, and I think even if I overpaid, I did not pay much for it.
Post edited December 28, 2020 by Leroux