Games that surprised your expectations.

Delve Deeper - I won it some time ago here, on SG. Probably I never would have bought it, but it turned out to be very entertaining and just perfect to play with friends during lectures :)

Team fortress 2 - Bought the orange box for portal and half life series a few years ago. Didn't expect TF2 to be that kick-ass of a multiplayer game. Currently, I have close to 700 hours logged on for TF2. Awesome game!

victoria II niby nic a jednak coś ;)

Recent negative surprises: Dragon Age 2 (not a bad game, just nothing like the epic that is Origins); Homefront; Death Rally (still playing the original and it's so much better); Diablo 3 (Diablo 2 is still the best); .

Recent positive surprises: The Walking Dead (almost didn't buy it); Chivalry (even more fun than I thought it might be); Bioshock (only got this one because it was on sale); Magicka (wasn't expecting much, but everyone had a copy); Magic the Gathering (never played the card game, didn't want the game, but a friend gifted it to me so now I'm hooked).

The biggest surprise I ever had from a game was with Planescape Torment. My impressions weren't good and I almost passed it up until I found it on sale in a bargain bin. OMGWTFBBQ!!!1! My understanding of just what an RPG could be was changed forever.

Alan Wake, at first I was like... "Figthing with a flashlight .. you've got to be kidding me" Later i was like OMG!!!!this game is so Awesome!!!!

FarCry 3!
I didn't really read anything about it before the release.
I was expecting something bad like FarCry 2. But then i started played, and man! It was GOTY for me after finishing it :D

The Darkness II, won here and discovered it was better than I expected; now I bought the first one for 360, it arrived today!

I'm sure it's been mentioned already, but Spec Ops: The Line was one of the most surprising games I've ever played. Instead of a generic shooter, it was an intense story driven experience with a seriously unique twist on the war genre.

Faster Than Light
Store preview looked like crap but it was awesome <3

Bastion. too many feels. To much fun.
DungeonLand, way more fun than i thought!

Just Cause 2: I thought it would be another stupid game that I buy and only play for like 2 hours.
Than I discovered the free roam and everything,The game is just beautiful.

Fozen Synapse & Hero Academy. Turns out I really enjoy turn based strategy games like those :D

Cave Story +
Never played Cave Story before, and was expecting a random, usual 8 bit game.
Turns out that the story was great, and hooked me up for hours.

Borderlands 1: I came into the game looking at something that had weird graphics and numbers popping out when I shot someone. The story character (angel) didn't align with the graphics either but the graphics proved simpler, cover actually worked unlike other FPS games (deus ex works), and that humor.

Borderlands 2: I had high expectations, and in my opinion it really didn't improve almost anything from the original game. Anything it gained, it threw out because of the lack of humor. Best part of that game is innuendo-bot and "make me human".

Death to Spies: It came in a bundle with a bad trucking simulator and the rest of the games wouldn't work because they developers hadn't updated the game for my graphics. So it looked as bad as it could be, but upon playing the game was pretty good. It matched up with a gameplay style I had been looking for with a FPS simulator where there was less shooting, more strategy, but still action. While the AI is a bit... simple However, you still have a limited amount of resources to work with, so it gets harder as you go if you don't account for that well.

Orcs Must Die, Toy Soldiers, Sleeping Dogs

Even though this is for Xbox 360: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Kept me entertained for hours upon hours and I will never sell it until I decide to sell my xbox.

Lego Star Wars - Was expecting a kids game but it was so damned addictive.

Under the Garden...That game is soo amazing....its like teraria but less ponies and shit....i really like it...i didnt play alot but i survived around 30 days for now^^

Left 4 Dead I wasn't waiting for this game. First I thought there couldn't be anything special about it, but after hearing good things about L4D again and again I had to try it out and oh god how wrong I was. I got seriously addicted.

Killing Floor After a year of its release I heard of this game from a friend. So I thought why not and bought it. First it looked like a really boring and bad looking game. I didn't play it more than a few hours. After a break of about a year I got into KF again and this time I think I saw the silver side of this great GREAT game.

Dead Island Just like you I had heard some bad things about this game and how horribly it was bugged at release. In the end I came to the conclusion I had to get it for the co-op's sake and WOW! The atmosphere was so fantastic. Dead Island really had a surprising element, it was wonderful.

Fallout: New Vegas Although I knew this game would be great and all, it somehow got me and I couldn't let go. At first I was expecting to play the game maybe 15 hours, but 160 hours, no way. The best part is, I aint done with the game!

Sniper : Ghost Warrior, Big disappointment, short, i felt more like rambo, not sniper.

Shadows of the Damned. Didnt expect it to be so fun and good. :)

Sleeping Dogs. Only reason why I bought it was because Emma Stone wa in it ;) game graphics were good, the voice acting and the story nailed it for me. The melee combat system gets better as you play on and get upgrades. My only gripe about the game would be the DLCs which are mostly just skins and in my opinion, not worth any money.

Batman arkham asylum. In all seriousness, I have never played a super hero game I enjoyed until I played Arkham Asylum. Again, the melee combat system and voice acting nailed it for me. Story was surprisingly decent for a super hero game :p

I'll do "yays" and "mehs":

YAYS go to

Kane & Lynch - My expectations were very surprised by that one. I borrowed it from a friend just 'cause I had nothing else to play at the time and found it amazing. The sequel is great too.

And Dead Space - I had zero faith in this game, but after hearing a friend who is a fan of survival horror singing praises to it for like a week, I decided to give it a try. It blew me away.

And MEHS go to

Alan Wake - I started it with all the hype of playing a "modern survival horror game", but it ended up being a pretty standard TPS with an above-average story but a (very?) subpar ending.

And Assassin's Creed - It was innovative and original... for like an hour. Then it got repetitive, slow and overall boring. AC2 was a HUGE improvement (I guess it could be a "yay", since I didn't expect much from it but it turned out to be great for me. Best of the series so far).

EDIT: wow disappointments keep popping up: NFS Shift 2, Midnight Club 2, PoP 2008.

BONUS TRACK: speaking of flashing monsters with flashlights, I enjoyed Obscure 2 a lot actually! A hidden gem imo.

I also need to say that, although I hated its SP, I had plenty of fun during LAN parties with Far Cry 2.

Good surprises: Natural Selection 2. Saints Row: The Third knocked my pants off in surprise. I thought it was a GTA game, and I hate those. Instead, it was a hilarious game that entertained me for hours. Dwarfs?! was a minor surprise.

Bad surprises: Killing floor annoyed me, though everyone told me how great it was. Bastion. I really wanted to like it, the narrator was awesome. The controls? Not so much. Planetside 2. Diablo 3.

Borderlands.