Friend of mine who doesn't play much recommended this poker game called Balatro to me. Damn is it fun. This was well before all the hype around it.

I got one! The very first Assassin's Creed when it came out!

My childhood friend would NOT shut up about it! He would talk over and over again about the lore, show me extended cutscenes, videos, sent me lore theories, it was a whole thing!

Years later I finally get to play it and holy shit, what a disappointment… the entire game is just the same 3 missions over and over again… like no effort into hiding anything… literally the same 3 missions copied and pasted ad nauseum with different enemy names. I'm still shocked he sat through all of this bullshit to get to the awesome lore he went on and on about for weeks.

Bonus story with the same friend: we were talking about Devil May Cry and he said "I wish I could find another game like it…" and I noticed he said "game" and not "games" or "franchise" so I asked "Did you play the sequels? DMC3 is incredible!" and he goes "What sequels? I'm sure it's only one game…" and I swear I screamed at the realization he's talking about the reboot DmC: Devil May Cry and had no clue the original franchise even exists 😂 That was right after DMC5 came out too, which's wild.

I recommended starting with DMC5 because the story isn't great anyway and DMC1 or even DMC3 may feel a little dated. He ignored my advice because he wanted to experience the story from the beginning, picked up the HD collection, hated both DMC1 and DMC3 because they felt too stiff, and never touched the franchise again.

Dark Souls 2. A coworker gave me a steam code for it after I told him I wasn't really a big fan of games where you just have to memorize opponent movesets. He said he'd gift it to me if I gave it an honest try, and I did.

And I didn't like it. Didn't understand the hype, didn't have any idea what was going on with me dying and transforming or something, or why there were weird ghosts of other players all over the map. Maybe it makes sense if you know the genre but I didn't like the gameplay and didn't get any lore/story, so I ditched it.

For me it‘s Darkest Dungeon. I just don‘t enjoy „scraping by,“ I like to take care of and connect with my party, and that‘s just not the kinda game it is. It‘s just bleak everywhere, by design and fully intentional; and just not my thing. Saw a lotta friends play it and thought I should try it.

The only one I can currently think of is Gris - and I say that because I can't recall buying a game that made me want to get my money back upon finishing it.

Gris is very highly rated across the board, so clearly there's something I'm missing as to why. I enjoy walking sim games every now and then, but it'd be hard for me to even call this one a game. People point to the story as being beautiful and deep, but it felt like nothing new and, for me, a bit trite. There was nothing engaging about this game to me. The worst part? It's like 3 hours long.

Sorry if whomever reads this really likes Gris. I'm glad you could enjoy it. To me, it's one of the worst recommendations I've ever received.

Half Life 2. Wasn't a big fan of the first one, but the second had tons of hype, so I gave it a shot. The physics stuff was cool, but the gameplay, story and characters were boring and flat. And the "revolutionary" storytelling method of locking you in a box to talk at you rather than making a proper cutscene still sucks.

My cousin's talked me into giving CoD 'one more try' like three times now. It's never worth it. The game is always worse and my cousin also tends to just not play for months after a handful of gaming sessions, so I don't even get the benefit of hanging out.

Generally stopped trying to game with him anymore. Just too flaky.

I’m not a console gamer, so the day Horizon Zero Dawn was released, I bought Mass Effect: Andromeda. It was meh.

When Horizon came to PC and I played through it for the first time, I was stunned: the graphics, story, and gameplay were so much better than Andromeda’s. I’m still not a console gamer, but Horizon had me considering a PS4 (and later 5) for a while there.

Grim Dawn. "hey remember Diablo 2,the best ARPG ever? This is that but better!"

No it's not. It's not bad, but it just doesn't click.

I got several, I've found that some people really think about what I like in a game and nail a recommendation and some people just recommend things they liked, regardless how I feel on them.

The big ones would be Breath of the Wild and Helldivers 2.

Everyone kept praising Baldur's Gate 3. I even watched gameplay of it.

It was buggy on the supposed release, especially with a quest that had been part of the beta FOR YEARS rendering itself incompleltable and stealing my items in the process.

Then I got sucked into a party wipe, and a fight I had beaten earlier suddenly became an impassable slogfest.

$90 AUD for 3 hours of gameplay and a piss poor character creator. Because orcs had fuckall compared to the other races.

I am never trusting popular opinion again.

Last of Us.

When the first one came out everyone was ranting and raving over it so I picked it up for my PS3. Granted the beginning of the game was an absolute gut punch and I thought I was hooked, I was not. I found the rest of the game so damn boring. I didn't like the story, I felt it was forced fed to the player, and honestly I just never bothered finishing it. for me it wasn't fun.

There's a lot of games people recommend me based on cozy things which is good cause I do like them.

Then they get confused when I'm going deep into the Warhammer or the rogue likes/lites cause those are not very cozy.

And I do not like visual novels despite being in the demographic.

Assuming the (not) is optional, I loved both Soma and Subnaitica. Two great recommendations