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15 Video Games That Nobody Defends Anymore

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Nazarii Verbitskiy

Gaming - November 6th 2026, 00:00 GMT+1

15. Haze (2008)

Nectar lets the soldiers in *Haze* fight harder while shielding them from the ugliness of what they’re doing. That’s a clever premise for a shooter, especially once switching sides lets you exploit those same chemically enhanced enemies. Unfortunately, Free Radical surrounds that idea with clumsy firefights and dialogue that makes every squadmate sound like someone you’d mute immediately. The political satire needed sharper writing; the shooting needed enemies capable of putting up a convincing fight. | © Ubisoft

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5 — 14. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 (2015)

Grinding a rail shouldn’t feel like negotiating with the software. Yet *Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5* manages to make that foundational pleasure unreliable, with collision problems and a downward slam assigned to the same button as grinding. Even when the physics cooperate, the parks lack the inviting lines and rewarding discoveries that once made restarting irresistible. Calling this a numbered sequel raised expectations the repetitive objectives couldn’t meet, long before a skater disappeared through the scenery. | © Activision

Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe — 13. Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe (2008)

Batman fighting Scorpion should require approximately zero persuasion. *Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe* nevertheless finds ways to complicate the sale, pairing toned-down Fatalities with close-range button-guessing contests that interrupt the fighting. The DC heroes’ nonlethal finishers make sense for their characters, but leave an awkward mismatch between the crossover’s appeal and its restrictions. There’s enjoyable nonsense in the story, including the gloriously unsubtle Dark Kahn, though the novelty does more work than the combat deserves. | © Midway Games

Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 — 12. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 (2010)

Two lightsabers, spectacular Force powers, and stormtroopers with exceptionally poor career prospects: the ingredients are all there. *Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II* even improves the handling, making Starkiller’s destructive tantrums easier to enjoy. What it lacks is enough adventure to justify them. Repeated encounters stretch a brief campaign, while the mystery surrounding his identity generates more questions than satisfying answers. The abrupt ending feels particularly cheeky after so much time spent making limited material last. | © LucasArts

God of war ascension appreciation v0 amr5905jhbke1 — 11. God Of War: Ascension (2013)

Kratos can tear through a spectacular monster and still leave you wondering whether this particular adventure needed to happen. *God of War: Ascension* explores his struggle against the Furies, but its prequel story struggles to give familiar suffering fresh dramatic weight. The revised rage system also makes taking damage doubly irritating, stripping away access to stronger attacks. Ambitious multiplayer supplies a worthwhile experiment, while the campaign delivers impressive craftsmanship without the same sense of occasion. | © Sony Computer Entertainment

10. The Callisto Protocol (2022)

Listen to the machinery groan inside Black Iron Prison and *The Callisto Protocol* briefly seems capable of making good on every grisly promise. Then another creature approaches, and you settle into the familiar left-right dodge routine. Heavy melee attacks have satisfying impact, but repeated encounters make the monsters increasingly predictable, while crowded fights expose the camera’s limitations. The presentation keeps suggesting a richer horror experience than the narrow environments and limited enemy variety can sustain. | © KRAFTON

9. Saints Row (2022)

Building a criminal empire with your roommates could have given *Saints Row* a scrappy, personal identity. Instead, the reboot struggles to make its central friendships feel earned, then asks you to invest in businesses whose repetitive assignments gate progress through the story. Its extensive character customization offers more personality than many of the conversations. Underneath the launch bugs sits a familiar open-world routine, with too many errands separating the moments when being a reckless idiot actually becomes fun. | © Deep Silver

8. Gotham Knights (2022)

Batgirl arrives with the training to fight Gotham’s criminals, yet her signature glide still requires completing a checklist. That progression decision captures the frustration of *Gotham Knights*: abilities that could make patrol immediately exciting become rewards for enduring less interesting patrols first. The four heroes have distinct strengths, and cooperative play adds welcome company, but equipment management and repetitive street encounters keep diluting the detective fantasy. Gotham needs saving; apparently, your build needs optimizing more urgently. | © Warner Bros. Games

7. Metal Gear Survive (2018)

Your stomach gets a surprisingly prominent role in *Metal Gear Survive*. Hunger, thirst, crafting materials, and base maintenance compete for attention in a spin-off whose practical pleasures involve preparing defenses and keeping hostile creatures behind fences. Those systems can produce satisfying survival decisions, particularly when supplies run low during an expedition. Unfortunately, the early grind demands considerable patience before that appeal emerges, and the borrowed movement cannot supply the inventive encounters associated with the name. | © Konami Digital Entertainment

6. Skull and Bones (2024)

A successful boarding action in *Skull and Bones* originally rewarded you with a cutscene. Your crew got the swashbuckling; you got the inventory decisions. That division neatly explains the disappointment surrounding its launch, when resource collection and equipment progression occupied space many players expected sword fights and adventurous exploration to fill. Naval battles have satisfying tactical considerations, and subsequent updates have expanded the offering, but the original pirate fantasy felt oddly reluctant to let its captain participate. | © Ubisoft

Marvels Avengers — 5. Marvel's Avengers (2020)

Kamala Khan deserved the game that the opening hours of *Marvel’s Avengers* seemed to promise. Her enthusiasm gives the fractured team a human center, and learning each hero’s attacks offers genuine pleasure. The endgame spends that goodwill on repeated facilities and equipment upgrades that rarely feel remotely heroic. There’s only so much excitement in improving Hulk through an inventory menu. An appealing campaign becomes the introduction to a routine that never matches its characters’ scale. | © Square Enix

Mass Effect Andromeda — 4. Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017)

Give Ryder room to jump, dash, and combine powers, and *Mass Effect: Andromeda* makes a persuasive argument for itself. Open the journal afterward and the enthusiasm gets harder to maintain. Exploration regularly collapses into scanning, collecting, and commuting between objectives, while uneven dialogue struggles to make the new crew immediately compelling. The infamous facial animations became an easy punchline, but the deeper disappointment was discovering how much routine busywork accompanied the opportunity to explore another galaxy. | © Electronic Arts

Aliens Colonial Marines — 3. Aliens: Colonial Marines (2013)

The motion tracker is supposed to make you dread whatever’s approaching. In *Aliens: Colonial Marines*, seeing the creature can actually be reassuring: its erratic behavior often makes survival considerably less intimidating than the sound effects suggest. Familiar weapons and locations demonstrate affection for the film, but that recognition cannot rescue predictable encounters. Lengthy stretches fighting human soldiers further weaken the appeal, leaving a licensed shooter that repeatedly takes attention away from its most obvious attraction. | © SEGA

Cropped Anthem — 2. Anthem (2019)

Flying beneath a waterfall to cool your Javelin was the sort of detail that made *Anthem* seem full of possibilities. Landing usually meant returning to missions and rewards that struggled to make those possibilities matter. Its spectacular movement deserved a stronger campaign and a more compelling loot system, rather than the expectation that repetition would sustain everything. The planned overhaul was abandoned, and the servers eventually closed, leaving that exhilarating flight system stranded inside an unplayable game. | © Electronic Arts

1. Duke Nukem Forever (2011)

Fourteen years of anticipation is an unreasonable burden for any shooter. *Duke Nukem Forever* nevertheless adds several entirely avoidable problems, including sluggish stretches that keep its supposedly unstoppable hero away from entertaining fights. Shrinking Duke offers occasional playful changes of scale, but the campaign repeatedly loses momentum to awkward platforming and tired jokes. For a character built around swagger, he spends an embarrassing amount of time waiting for the game to give him something worth doing. | © 2K Games

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“It gets better after ten hours” is a lot to ask of someone with a job and other games installed. Still, plenty of disappointing video games once had players willing to defend every tedious mission and missing feature. Some were protecting a favorite franchise; others really wanted that full-price purchase to feel worth it. These 15 games have since lost much of that support, leaving arguments that sound considerably less convincing once the launch hype wears off.

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“It gets better after ten hours” is a lot to ask of someone with a job and other games installed. Still, plenty of disappointing video games once had players willing to defend every tedious mission and missing feature. Some were protecting a favorite franchise; others really wanted that full-price purchase to feel worth it. These 15 games have since lost much of that support, leaving arguments that sound considerably less convincing once the launch hype wears off.