Yes, the Infinity Engine games are great. They're like a trilogy, Icewind Dale focuses on tactical combat, Planescape: Torment on story and Baldur's Gate balances both elements. I loved all of them.

Unlimited Saga.
It's still my least favorite game of all time.
The battles are just the worst.
And I just never really enjoyed the Kings Bounty games.
I like turn-based strategies but they just never drew in.
It's not a terrible game by any means though.
To me, it was just kinda meh.

Don't bash WoW till you try it. I quit a short while back, and while it's true that the basic gameplay formula - kill stuff over and over without an ultimate goal - may seem numbing, it's more than capable of sucking you in and not letting you go.
It should be noted that after playing WoW, I have a hard time not rolling my eyes at single-player RPGs. WoW is filled with quests; most monsters in a given area will have some text and shinies attached to motivate the killing, but this incentive is either oddly absent in many games (say, FFXII, which I love anyway) or it's overly scripted (say, Dragon Age).
Trust me, WoW is a good game. It's not everyone's cup of tea (and I don't drink tea, or coffee, for that matter), but it's definitely possible to draw parallels to single-player gameplay design when you play it.
Oh, and the subscription fee is actually okay since content patches are released... erm... infrequently, but they're basically mini-expansions.
...*Cough*. It's hard to actually say what's so great about the game from the outside, but basically it's a combination of the portable carrot farm hanging in front of you and playing with other people in a persistent (if static) universe.
Now, as for games that make my blood boil... Adventure games in general tend to do this to me, but Beneath a Steel Sky I just can't stand. Halfway through the game I realised it was a comedy, and when I was done with the game I had laughed only once through the whole thing. I felt the story and humour insulted my intelligence, and the pixel-hunts made me want to punch something. That's something I never do.
Well, at least it was free and had Dave Gibbons as the artist. To this day, however, I feel this game is a perfect example of why adventure games died out, and why they should stay dead. (Which is a bit harsh of me since I haven't actually tried the Telltale ones yet).
That feeling you get when you realise you've just rubbed every item in your inventory against every conspicuously bright patch of pixels you've been able to find and realise you have no idea what to do and that your character needs to WALK between screens and that there's gonna be a lot of backtracking involved... That's not merely being frustration with the game, it's frustration with an entire genre where you're manually pressing "Play" to proceed to the next scene; it's a game genre without gameplay. (Minigames spice it up, but no, they're not much good without replay value).
I've got a soft spot for Monkey Island, though. Sanitarium also had puzzles that made sense, and which didn't involve lugging around a joke shop's complete inventory in your pants. And Zack & Wiki is really nice because of how the minigames are woven into the rest of the game. Also, I found Professor Layton strangely compelling, but that's a puzzler, right?
Neverwinter Nights also makes me see the proverbial red. Repetitive, ugly, unappealing, unrewarding... That's just the vanilla game, though - the expansions and sequels are alright - and I posted a very long rant about that game a few months back, so I'll just add it's a very silly game and leave it at that.

Battlecruiser 3000AD. Need I say more? Derek Smart promised the definitive space game. All he delivered was a gdfsgsdfhgsdfghsdgfh mess.

Modern Warfare's, Halo's, WoW's, anything with [A]D&D, modern cRPGs. Basically anything oozing with simplicity, consolitis, or with a casual undertone, marketed as something more [that's why Peggle and Bejeweled or PvZ are actually great], and everything that has more advertising to it, than actual gameplay, games recycling old ideas, claiming they are new [day/night cycle anyone?].
Because "mediocrity and banality" [thanks, Bill] suck. ;)
[edit]Oh, yeah, and what new owners do with great licenses, Ultima 8, Command & Conquer, and such.
IMGAME CUTSCENES that ruin the pace of the game, like in GTA and C&C for example.
But most of all ["i hate you" - Overkill;P /joke] badly written games, like GTA IV, Rockstar should go back to Lemmings. [/edit]

i liked modern warfare at first but the more i played it the more i hated it. I hate the hitman series for some reason.

I hate misuse of exclamation marks more than any game.

I do too. I have a few friends on facebook who use them to end every single sentence and it really rubs me the wrong way especially when they converse with each other.
here is an actual convo ( 3 people):
morning diane! (virtual hug)
AIR HUG FOR YOU!!!!
ugh! i can just kick someone diane!! i really could!
why shank!!!!!!
I bet you could!!!!
cuz ur on here whore!
n okay diane!
I'm really getting insulted!!!
thats fine ladies!!!
lmao! im only playing mindy! n i've insulted u way more than that n still here u are, but we love u mindy!
Oh Becca!!!! Where are you!!!! LMAO!!!!

Left4Dead games. At first they seem downright fun, but after you put 6-8 hours into those games within a few weeks I uninstall it out of hatred. Then a few months later I think it can't be that bad, go back ,play 6-8 hours or so in a week, then get rid of it again. After 4 cycles I just don't L4D games anymore.
The L4D franchise is also proof Valve are whores to money over consumer care and quality. L4D2 is evidence. For one last bit of proof, you hold shift and type L4D and what comes out is L$D. I rest my case, court adjourned.

That is the reason I don't have facebook.

Combat Mission Shock Force - The game's actually stable after approximately 297 patches. Unfortunately, the UI just pisses me off to no end. And the game itself is just sort of broken in theme...SHOCKINGLY, US units with thermal vision and air support completely obliterate Syrians! Want some new units? That's be 35 bucks for some re-skinned US Marine units and one short campaign, please. And some slightly different Syrian units for you to dominate. Ugh.
Dawn of War : Soulstorm - After the great move forward with Dark Crusade, this was a free fall down a steep hill made slick with several tons of shit.
Point and Click adventure Games in General - I hate them. Click on everything on every screen you enter, then click every item in your inventory on everything. Uhhh...no.

And I am. I can wrap my head around massive grand strategy games, but I cannot make my brain figure out how the Hell to get a stupid thing over a stupid chasm so I can use some stupid item to do something stupid. :)
Oh, and good call on Phantasmagoria. Not a fan of that one, either.

Oh I have tried, actually several times. And the more I try the more horrible it is. I'll take a scripted, not-so-repetitive RPG any time, since the 'motivator' that makes you kill stuff is idiotic in it's roots - you have to bring someone something that drops from dead monsters usually, as all of the one bizilion people before you did. It's weird how everyone in the world seems to be in distress even thou their trouble's resolved over and over and over again, as the world is full of heroes. Which ironically leads to dead world, which every MMORPG seems to have - there are few NPCs, plenty of monsters and even more players.
And the gameplay of fights ain't that good either, you basically use all your skills at whatever you bash over it's head and hope it dies. Even Diablo games were more fun.
Have you tried The Longest Journey and it's sequel, Dreamfall? Granted, there is one or two illogical puzzles involved, but the rest either makes sense or is not puzzle at all. Saying that the only genre that actually focuses on good story should stay dead isn't the best thing to say, in my opinion. You should rather think 'Adventure games should be more polished.' They have some game design issues that are usually not resolved even in today's games, but still, they work great as interactive fiction, and that is the way I actually approach them. You are right about them not basically having gameplay thou, not that I actually care about that since I'm playing...walking trough them for story.

Fallout 3.
If the NBA replaced basketballs with McDonald's drink cups you would get something similar to Fallout 3 in terms of quality. Actually I take that back. If the NBA replaced basketballs with McDonald's drink cups and the players with used condoms you'd have a Fallout 3 quality game