CrossCode

The desert temple and the jungle area are too tedious even if they are as quality as the rest of the game. The story ending in the DLC was ass and didn't resolve some things that needed to imo, mainly:

Rabi-Ribi

I can tolerate the fanservice because I have terminal weeb brainrot since childhood, but I can't recommend the game to anyone else even though it is a great metroidvania with awesome bossfights and music.

ZeroRanger

Breath of the Wild

It would have been a perfect game I could play forever if it had bigger dungeons and more than 10 enemy types.

I was thinking about saying Void Stranger is too long, but I can't decide if I actually feel that way. Indie games doing weird and esoteric things is a big part of what makes them cool. If there wasn't anything annoying, it'd be boring. Idk, it's not an easy thing to articulate.
The snake puzzle is bullshit though

Cultist Simulator literally involves building an exploitative cult and sometimes sacrificing your followers so you can ascend higher. Though this does make for some interesting commentary when you can play as a priest who is still said exploitative cult leader or be exploited as an exotic dancer who must perpetually expose themselves more and more to the point you shed your skin and become a bug creature. Dwarf Fortress is hard, but losing is FUN! I feel like it sometimes incentivizes you to stop growing and be content where you are or not continue to dig ever deeper past a certain point when all the FUN comes from trying for infinite growth. Sure it has a high chance of killing your fort, but that's better than sitting around and nothing happening from a gameplay perspective.

in Steambot Chronicles, it sucks that your character can't wear the fancy dress.

ETA: one criticism for two games, i love both project zomboid and terraria, but both of them suck to try to get working with a controller.

Mega Man Star Force 1's story has hit me more personally than any other piece of media and in general it's well-written despite it still being a kid's game. But it really rushed the friendship between Geo and Pat, you've barely even seen Pat throughout the game so Geo becoming so wrecked by his betrayal feels forced. Pat/Rey's betrayal is also telegraphed so blatantly that it makes Geo look like an idiot.

Pat/Rey also falls into a problematic DID trope of a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" type personality split, with an aggressive alter ego when most people with DID aren't dangerous like that.

Geo falling back into depression and fear of getting close with people, and cutting off everyone would be very relatable as someone who relapses into depressive thoughts, but the setup was too rushed as just mentioned and it's also right as the alien antagonists are starting their full-on invasion of Earth. It just made me go: "Get in the fucking mech, Shinji".

Night Striker relies too hard on the homing missiles as a source of difficulty in the later stages.

Rocket League is pretty great (pure ~~kino~~ludo), but the best game mode (DropShot) has been sidelined by the devs repeatedly, even though it is the most unique and "easy to learn - hard to master" mode. There is also a lot of toxic players in the community, and the moderation is pretty slow and often lacking.

Dungeons of the Endless is an ideal way to drain yourself of excess executive function energy, but the steep learning curve means that you have little understanding of the trade-off decisions you are making until you've played and failed many times. It takes a while to understand the game, and it's kind of a painful process for a while.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is a mostly about using tools of destruction effectively, with some other open-world generic tasks bolted on. The driving and shooting are good enough, but mostly just barely. It would have been much more interesting if it included some building/fortification mechanics.

DEFCON is pretty cool, but it has a distinct lack of Posadism that feels like a huge lost opportunity.