What are some games and other gaming related crap do you regret purchasing? Now, it doesn't have to be because said thing was "bad" but you simply realized down the road it wasn't worth it. Personally, off the top of my head:

Windforge. Dear Santos L Clause was this a dud. Terraria with steampunk airships and a story, what could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out, from the 2.5 D building angle, to the hilariously ineffective weapons. Best of all, the game is entirely abandoned, unless like Pixel Piracy it sits dormant for a while before a massive patch. Even the Wiki is abandoned.

Luftrausers is by no means a bad game, but due to how the game works, it becomes such an upward curve so fast that progression becomes outright impossible. And while that could be rectified with a patch, no such thing exists. Apparently Vlambeer is beyond such things.

I'm starting to regret Race the Sun due to the awful way the progression system works and how there isn't a way to dismiss/refresh the challenges, and the course generator makes absolutely no steps towards helping you complete them. Use 2 emergency portals? I've not even seen what the powerup looks like. 15x Multiplier? Not enough tris in the world for that. 20 barrel rolls in on session? No room.

Also, so far everything beyond the magnet has been bog useless.

Oh, and Skyward Sword. That game had a stupid story, even compared to the worst of the series.

So, what are your regrets and their stories? Doesn't have to be limited to hardware, could be that you bought a Halo helmet for your cat!

I can't wait for someone to come in here and admit they actually bought 'The Glove'. :P

The game I most regret buying was Red Heat for the Atari ST. Wow, what a piece of crap. Game play was horrible. Luckily, the store I purchased it from gave me store credit on its return. I turned that around and picked up Falcon. At least it ended well. Falcon kicked ass! :D

I saved up for a copy of Deus Ex back in the day. I bought that instead of System Shock 2. What a mistake that was!

You mean the Power Glove? Or the N64 glove?

Remember how Mario Party had really awful minigames burning holes in palms? Nintendo sent out gloves for those.

I don't expect to win any popularity contests with this one, but... Darksiders. A lot of people love it for some reason, but to me it's the gaming equivalent of a kid going through an awkward goth phase and trying to be edgy. "Hey, let's have locks be eyes so that you open the locks by stabbing them with lots of blood and stuff!" Oof.

Silver, too. I think I bought it when Nordic had that sale that let you buy their games that were previously removed before they officially came back, and the PC version is just an abomination. It's an aRPG you control like a point-and-click, and the Dreamcast version is infinitely better because not only do you directly control the main character, but the bell puzzle actually works without having to cheat past it, and you can also use subtitles and voice acting at the same time whereas it's one or the other on PC. At least one video cutscene failed to trigger on the PC, too, and I had a bunch of crashes. Definitely not one of my best purchases.

The original Mac OS X port of HOMMV for the Mac, published by Freeverse Software. It was a fantastic game, and Freeverse and Transgaming really went the extra mile to ensure that the game was playable even on the GMA 950-equipped MacBooks of the time (even though it was a WINE-based wrapper port).

The only problem was that the game relied on a proprietary online-activation DRM system. Sure enough, after a few years or so, after Freeverse's buyout by Disney, Freeverse lost the rights to distribute Ubisoft IP, and the online activation servers were shut down, leaving my copy completely useless. I really regret buying that game. The official support forum suggestion of rebuying the game from UbiSoft (which, by that time was the same outdated port originally made by Freeverse and Transgaming) only rubbed salt in the wound.

I also really regret buying some budget-priced shovelware crap games on the Mac App Store. Not quite as bad as the stuff on Greenlight these days, but bad enough that I wished I'd have taken the trouble to get Apple to give me a refund.

Do people confuse Darkstalkers and Darksiders? Because I was confused for a moment there why a Capcom game with a naked cat girl would have those elements. Oh yeah! That reminds me of a few of the Wiiware and DSiWare regrets I have. Such as buying both Fireplace sims on the Wii. Or those virtual notepads. I'm sure there's other stinkers in the lineup but boy if Nintendo didn't make it a pain to look this stuff up now that Club Nintendo is dead.

Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, Dragon Age, Mass Effect. Tiberium sun 4, cause it become Always Online DRM or its sequel becomes

Online version of Magic the gathering, $100 lost on micro transaction after sony & wizards of the cost shut down server

Various F2P games for huge micro transaction

Game controller because it does not help me perform combos better in fighting games

Old games on steam because they don't work

Asus Ultra Slim laptop because it heated easily running games

90% of the PC games I purchased in Germany. 90% of them were censored or Deutsch only or both. :( An Acer Laptop many years ago too because it overheated too easily and was overpriced.

Only thing that pops immediately to mind are:

Torchlight - bought because of the rave reviews but found it boring as hell. Luckily, I only spent 5 bucks on it.
Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition - yet another lesson in being swayed by popular opinion. Bought it because of all the great reviews as well. Found it a terrible port with horrible controls, as well as some sort of on-line component of which Iw as unaware, and shelved it.

Germany seems like a terrible place to shop for software; how true is that?

If you hate censored games then yes. If you don't mind censored games then Germany isn't a bad place to buy video games because the stores there will offer you a lot of good deals.