stonebro: The pacing is also wrong, you achieve a sense of being all-powerful way too quickly.
Hmm, that wasn't quite my experience. Granted, nothing in your starting vault is that much of a threat to you, but I got myself into some severe trouble as soon as I stepped out of it.
There was that abandoned school right by the Vault, which I headed to first before I ever approached Megaton. Raiders were shooting at me from it and I didn't much appreciate that...and it turned out there were more than I expected.
Also, on the first real quest I undertook, I was crouched behind a supermarket counter realizing that I could not aim for crap, had almost no ammo, and was outnumbered. I certainly didn't feel like a demigod there.
Anyway...
Disappointing games!
Let's see.
Lords of the Realm III: I remember when this first came out. I knew very little about it, but I had loved LotR2. And I discovered it was an entirely different game. Only connected by setting and a name.
Master of Orion III: I caught on to MOO2 a little late, but regardless I loved it. I was thrilled to be getting a chance to play a sequel to a game that had done so much right. And then it was revealed to be a macro management game, more about giving up control to your governors than about controlling things yourself.
Civilization IV: By now you might be noticing that strategy games are all my disappointments...I suppose it is because I allow myself to buy into their hype and promise the most. Anyway, I loved the first thee Civ games, and Alpha Centuari. But the fourth game just underwhelmed me. Between a buggy initial release, a much slower paced early period, and the relatively uninteresting impact of religion on the game, I felt like I was holding a prettier but more flawed version of the other games. It shook my faith in Sid Meier a bit, and made me wonder just how big Brian Reynolds had been in the game-making process (and mourn his apparent preference of real-time strategy over turn-based).