Up For Debate - What's your biggest gaming disappointment of 2020?

Written by Chad Norton on Fri, Jan 1, 2021 2:00 PM
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As a new year approaches, we like to look back at the year in gaming and see what tickled our fancy, and in the case of today’s question: what didn’t. Disappointments unfortunately are a part of life, as they come hand in hand with expectations and excitement. Sometimes something promises one thing and ends up delivering another. It doesn’t mean it was bad, per se... it just means it wasn’t quite what we were expecting.

So to end this year on a high note, we thought we’d get the bad stuff out the way first by asking what was your biggest gaming disappointment of 2020? Was it a brand new game that didn’t live up to expectations? Or maybe something to do with hardware not performing like it should? Let’s debate!

Cyberpunk 2077 immediately comes to mind due to the overwhelming controversy surrounding it’s launch on last-gen consoles. Many even went online to express their disappointment with the game, but when we asked how you were finding CP2077 so far, an overwhelming majority of 383 voted positively, whilst only 46 voted negatively.

And on the topic of whether it met your expectations, 262 voted for “meets”, whilst 128 voted for “falls short” and only 32 voted for “exceeded”. So it’s clearly a divisive topic, but the general consensus does seem to be mostly positive at least.

Personally, I'm loving Cyberpunk 2077 despite all the issues, so it's certainly not my biggest disappointment. But what about you?

Another good example of a disappointment this year would be the sheer amount of GPU shortages. Nvidia and AMD both brought out new graphics cards with some of the biggest performance gains gen-on-gen for a while, which was very exciting to say the least, only you can’t buy any of them because not many were made.

So for a lot of people, that excitement around their announcements quickly faded when multiple stores were reporting low stock before launch, and even went out of stock within minutes of officially launching.

There’s lots more examples I can give, but the time has come to pass the mantle over to you guys. What was your biggest gaming disappointment of 2020? Was it a brand new game not quite meeting expectations? Or an issue with new hardware? Or something else? Let’s debate!

Was 2020 mostly exciting or disappointing for gaming?

Was your biggest gaming disappointment of 2020 related to games or hardware?

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07:02 Jan-03-2021

Watch dogs, and generally the lack of big name games made this year. THE MOST POPULAR GAME THIS YEAR IS AMONG US LET THAT SINK IN.

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13:53 Jan-03-2021

That is very easy to explain with pandemic, people being stuck at home, having too much time and Among Us is basically simple game of werewolf and allows people to both game and socialize, plus gameplay wise it is simple for everyone. Similar thing let to popularity of Fall Guys, for as long as it lasted. Those games work really well with generalized crowds, unlike games like Watchdogs.

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19:13 Jan-02-2021

Red Dead Redemption 2 - the way storyline twists making basically whole game obsolete was really disappointing;
and brief mention on Cyberpunk, I still can't hear any music or npc voices in game, so I'm disappointed for broken game release, I'll revisit the game after half year to see if things are fixed yet

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18:32 Jan-02-2021

Game-wise I think it’s alright. My biggest disappointment is hardware release. Regardless new graphic cards, consoles, they are so difficult to get. I understand manufacturing issues, but I think scalpers is the biggest concern for each new hardware release.

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09:47 Jan-02-2021

Ehhh I can't say that I was particularly disappointed with any games in particular(Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't really something I found all that appealing in the first place)..... if I had any disappointment, it would have to be that we just didn't get alot of games that I would personally consider exciting.

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09:11 Jan-02-2021

The lack of hardware online was my biggest...

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23:37 Jan-01-2021

I am going to say Cyberpunk 2077 and I know I am going to get thumbed down, because god forbid you say anything bad about CP or CDPR, because bad things are AAA exclusive. But with as much hype as it got, or even ignoring this, there were so much shenanigans and good reputation loss with launch and it was so overrated. Like it is good and fun game, it just isn't greatness CDPR lead us to believe.

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21:12 Jan-02-2021

Look up the amount of cut content just to meet the release date. It'll make you sick. The developers aren't the problem. It's the people in charge.

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06:59 Jan-03-2021

I think you expecting to much from a VIDEO GAME. A good, fun game is the goal. LOL NOT life changing.

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13:41 Jan-03-2021

Fun is very subjective. I had fun with Duke Nukem Forever and that is universally considered garbage tier and I won't argue people who say so, because I am not walking around with blindfold over my eyes. I know it is bad game, but I also won't lie, I had fun. This is the first flaw in your argument. Second one is that you are basically saying how we should forget anticonsumer things done with CP.

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13:43 Jan-03-2021

All the lies, all misleading,... plus it does effect my fun, terrible AI, easy exploits, lack of quality assurance, having to restart buggy quests by loading, because objective didn't trigger, items I can't pick up because they are bit into ground,... I am only expecting what was promised. CDPR could easily go for bit of honesty and maybe sold million or two less, but not burn the good will.

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13:45 Jan-03-2021

And I am not saying YOU shouldn't have fun. And I am not saying CP2077 is bad game. It is good game that came instead of promised game of the year greatness, which they lied about. Will they fix it? Maybe, but I can't talk about game we don't have yet, I can only talk about game we have today. And game we have today isn't great, even if it is fun, because some elements do save it there.

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13:47 Jan-03-2021

But when it all comes together, it isn't what was promised and it isn't my fault if CDPR couldn't be honest. I only expect companies to deliver what they promise. If they don't, issue is not me, regardless of how some gamers want to forget it and find excuses for it and then thumb down people who tell the truth, because reasons, maybe truth hurts. Just saying.

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13:49 Jan-03-2021

But I am not going to reward CDPR for lying any more than I am going to reward EA for it. If it is ok for CDPR to release good game and get it praised as next coming of Jesus, same should be done for EA, Activision, Ubisoft,... Because I don't play favorites, if I would be upset about something with EA, I am going to be upset about it with CDPR, no free passes.

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22:12 Jan-01-2021

Marvel's Avengers what a disappointment was it !!

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23:25 Jan-01-2021

No question

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18:35 Jan-01-2021

I wasnt really disappointed by cyberpunk 2077 as i played the game on pc it only had minor bugs and only 2 crashes in the first 30 minutes, after that i have not got any other crashes in my 30 hours playtrough, so far im really enjoying the game even if i was expecting a little bit more.

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18:19 Jan-01-2021

TLOU 2 was my biggest disappointment of the century, not just the year...

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16:27 Jan-01-2021

My big dissapoint of the year was Watch Dogs Legion,I thought this time Ubi will do something great and well optimized for first time in many years but no.

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16:19 Jan-01-2021

Seriously console players can go @#$! themselves for once. I am glad they got a taste of their own medicine with CP 2077 feeling more like a PC game ported in a rushed way to the consoles. That being said, I never really was hyped about the world of CP2077. It is a good game, but I'd much rather have Witcher 4.

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17:37 Jan-01-2021

I get what you mean, this rarely happens to the console version of games. I'm just waiting on someone to make a documentary of how this dumpster fire happened.

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17:53 Jan-01-2021

How? The consoles held themselves back, not just us lmao. This is a bit embarrassing. Because of consoles, we're seeing extremely slow progress towards the next-gen to the point the line between gens is so blurred out you don't even see it. I'd just create consoles every two years to keep up, in line with major PC hardware releases. 7 years between console gens is damaging to the industry.

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16:10 Jan-01-2021

Disappointed with Halo 4. Never played it before and bounced off it after a couple of hours. What I played felt too reliant on having to swap dropped weapons all the time because of a lack of ammo, so it was usually forcing me to play with weapons that I didn't enjoy using and that was never a problem with Bungie's games.

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15:47 Jan-01-2021

My disappointment with gaming in 2020 isn't as much that a game disappointed me or not, it's more the lack of any note worthy games (in my opinion). The only game that really had me excited was Cyberpunk 2077. I am a sucker for open world games, and i felt like 2020 was lacking in that department. Don't get me wrong, there were loads of good games. But non that had me excited. I don't know if it's just me getting old and cranky, but 2021 seems more exciting.

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16:04 Jan-01-2021

Regarding OW games I'm enjoying AC:Valhalla but I'm only playing 1-2 hours a day as that way I won't get burnt out on it as it sticks closely to the 2 previous games formula. Horizon: Zero Dawn's combat was fun but I quickly lost interest in the worlds tribes and story and haven't bothered to finish it. Loving CP2077 though as it's not that far from what I expected it to be.

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16:20 Jan-01-2021

Personally i haven't pulled it together to give AC: Valhalla a chance. I feel like after the disappointment that origins and odyssey was(They have a very grindy feel), i won't be giving Valhalla a chance. Or at least not until it's something like 75% off. Horizon: Zero Dawn is a amazing game, which i was very excited for.... when it was released... back in 2017 :/ I don't see zero dawn as a 2020 release. It's nice that it came to PC, but i already played it 3 years earlier :)

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19:59 Jan-01-2021

Yeah, AC:Valhalla still has the level restrictions for each area so if you want to just go through the story it would be very grindy. Haven't had a new console since the PS3 and the first Uncharted game so there's a lot of stuff PS wise that I'm just hoping might eventually arrive on PC and not through the PSNow streaming app

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20:22 Jan-01-2021

@imwhat yeah that doesn't work for me, i am the kind of person who plays a game for the story. Then explores the open world afterwards :) I see video games as story telling, which is why assassins creed games in recent years have been unenjoyable for me :/

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15:37 Jan-01-2021

Gonna get a lot of hate for this, but for me Doom Eternal was a huge let down because it deviated so much from the 2016 formula. I hated the new mechanics for the gameplay and couldn't get to like the game, so I refunded it.

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18:32 Jan-01-2021

Same, i liked the 2016 way more , but maybe becuase i dont really like platformers that much and im not a masochist to die again and again constantly, i died only 3 times in 2016 but died like 60 times in eternal that when i finished the game i ended up with a bad taste

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15:07 Jan-01-2021

More disappointing than any game this year was the PS5 launch, you couldn't find one of those anywhere...
And even if you were extremely lucky to get one, there was almost nothing to play on it...an overpriced remake and a DLC...

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15:03 Jan-01-2021

My biggest gaming disappointment was the XIII remake, I loved the original and the remake was just awful, very disappointing. As for CP2077 I completely understand people's outrage if they expected the next evolution of gaming but...

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15:05 Jan-01-2021

... if like me you just wanted a competent futuristic dystopian with decent story to lose yourself into you got exactly what you asked for, but they seriously need to fix the bugs/performance and add some missing features like transmog.

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18:43 Jan-01-2021

Transmog in CP 2077 is not needed. It's not world of warcraft. Really. The game allows you to be overpowered even with mid range good looking armor.

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14:49 Jan-01-2021

Probably the new console launch. Even if they were available to buy. There's just no reason to buy them! Xbox is more useless than ever, meaning if you have even slightly capable gaming pc you don't need an xbox since you already have all the games. And PS5 has no games for it whatsoever.

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14:53 Jan-01-2021

Like what happened to having actual launch titles and interesting exclusive games?

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