Evoland - an underutilized gimmick, a story that was probably written in five minutes, one dimensional characters, extremely easy, extremely short, unfunny jokes, in your face references, but the biggest reason is, I actually see the potential in the "evolving game" gimmick. A potential I'm sure the developers "overlooked".

P.O.D.
Evoland
Maximum Road Rage
Neverwinter Nights because there was a Gold edition later on
Neverwinter Nights Gold since there was a Diamond Edition later...
Unreal Tournament 3 - I searched and didn't find a clue anywhere, that it needs an online activation
Warcraft 3, since the original version only worked with crack due to stupid DRM
Final Fantasy IIX, unplayable due to massive problems with my graphics card back then and totally scrambled pictures

probably a lot more

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

This game taught me to never buy into the pre-hype.

well, my friend told me its pretty decent - but in any case, with the backlog i have i am not to pressured to get it till later.

--

On topic: there are plenty games ive regretted buying, but not really in the past few years. Since steam sales and bundles, there's been only couple games ive paid full price. Back in the boxed game era the 300 finnish mark errors were truly painful.

But Zelda games have been nothing BUT hype for 20 yrs now.

Nope, they are mostly excellent action adventures,
Spirit Tracks was awful though.

Never did try the DS games, I suppose the other one (Phantom Hourglass) is worth checking out?
I enjoyed most of them (even Skyward Sword and Zelda 2 despite their flaws).

They have generally been the same game repackaged since the N64 with the exception of a gimmick or two. The same repetitive stories, the same boring puzzles, lifeless dull characters. Pure Nintendo.

Even a good game that's consistently repackaged year after year is still a basically good game. You could do a lot worse, like me!

When I was a kid, I saved up to buy Red Alert Retaliation on the psx. I discovered I sucked at RTS games and tried to return it, you know what happens next.

I'm a careful buyer but Ive done goofed before

Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising (welcome to jank city)
Call of Juarez The Cartel (absolute garbage)
Jurassic park warpath
Lucky Luke
Rage (just really boring)

Phantom Hourglass is not as good as Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, but it's ok.
Minish Cap was not bad too.

That's actually a good thing, too many series have been trashed because they changed a winning formula.

Not true x2.
UT3 has no activation requirements. Source: I just reinstalled last weekend.
Warcraft 3 has no DRM. It did have a CD check that patches removed.

@UT3: German DVD-Version has.

@Warcraft3: I wrote about the release version which I bought back then and have given back.

Fear 2
Fear 3
Full Burst
Shogun 2 total war gold edition

Okay, US DVD version hasn't.
And Warcraft3 release version did not. Disk check is not DRM.

Age of Empires II: HD on... Steam *shivers*

You can never be forgiven for making a deal with the devil!

Burn me!