Games you didn't expect to be good.

Halo: CE.

Now it's what I consider to be the best FPS game of all time.

What games you didn't have any expectations from, gave you a very positive experience?

For me it's Megaman Legends - Picked this up in a bin of used games for the PSone. At that point i hadn't played a Megaman game since Megaman 4 for the NES. Instant classic for me, and the second one was even better in every way.

AndersK

NIER is the big one for me.

Soul Calibur V!

When I saw all the hate for the game I thought I'll never like it. 6 months later I bought it and it's among my favourite fighting games ever.

Can't think of any TBH, I only buy games I'm like 90% certain I'll enjoy... with the exception of RE5, which I bought because I'm a fan of the series and had to have it. It did disappoint me.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I loved everything I saw, but the way the devs adjusted stuff to everything the players wanted almost seemed desperate and frantic. Quite frankly, it seemed too good to be true. Turned out to be my favorite game of this generation! I can't wait to see what they come up with next!

EDIT: Oh, and the second Army of 2, that game stands to be my favorite co-op game of this generation as well.

Maybe Army of Two: The 40th Day? I didn't expect it to be bad but not as good as it was either.

Gears of War too. At the time I thought that restricting it down to only 4 v 4 sounded lame. I thought such small scale battle just didn't sound as great but the game really felt great. It played great, souded awesome and looked beautiful. Just goes to show that a game doesn't have to be huge and "epic" to be freakin awesome.

But there really weren't any game that took me by complete surprise this gen. I generally know what I'm getting myself into.

Transformers War for Cybertron (A good Transformers game.... WHAT! Impossible!)

Batman Arkham Asylum (A Batman game with not just generic enemies and real villians!)

Dead Space (A new and orginal videogame that's scary... YES PLEASE!)

Spec Ops: The Line. Oh look a reboot of a crappy, dead franchise. Yay... and look it's yet another mediocre TPS.

That's what I thought of the game before launch.

Boy was I wrong. While it looks average and even plays average (which is still pretty good), the story, while a little sketchy at first, really developed and turned an average game into an amazing experience that most games can't deliver.

Crackdown.

Deus Ex: HR

Saints Row

Knights of the Old Republic (Didn't expect it to be THAT good)

Dragon Age Origins

Fallout 3

The Binding of Isaac

I didn't think it would be bad but I underestimated it - Portal 2

Can;t think of anything else...

and last gen but

Seek and Destroy (PS2)

Deus Ex: HR

Saints Row

Knights of the Old Republic (Didn't expect it to be THAT good)

Dragon Age Origins

Fallout 3

Magescrew

Need to play still. Just got that in the Steam sale.

FF13-2. I thought the story was going to drag on and on with nothing really happening just like its prequel. But it was actually a very solid JRPG with some very unique features.

NaturalDisplay

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Repulic 2: Sith Lords

I really paid no mind to the game. I was just in the store looking for a random game to buy and saw Game of the Year on the front and while it was talking about it's obvious prequel's success I still wanted to give the sequel a try.

Holy smokes is it good, I mean, really! Only problem is it has decided to up and die on my machines for no apparent reason...should really fix that one of these days because I seriously loved the time I had invested into the game. Even though it has a really annoying glitch that I have no idea how to even fix it's still a lot of fun and is quite deep in some aspects.

Dragon Age: Origins looked like crap to me, regardless of the reviews for it. A friend ended up really disliking it and give me his copy to try. It was free so I thought 'why not?'. I ended up losing a lot of sleep to that game over the next few weeks.

Saint's Row 3. Impulse buy during the steam sale when it was like $12.50. Turned out to be absolutely fantastic. I was sure it would be crap (I hated Saints Row 2), but it proved to be one of the best open-world sandbox games of its type.

KotoR-heard it was good, but didn't know it would be my favorite game of the previous gen

Borderlands-watched some friends beat it in a day made fun of them then bought it myself. Game i've played most this gen by far.

- ME 1, got the game of 360, got bored at the main menu, stopped playing for 6 months, came back and became a massive fan, then ME 3 undid everything.

- Half Life 2, thought it's just another shooter, but dead wrong.

- Defense Grid: The Awakening, bought it on Steam Christmas sales for that Steam challenge, ended up hooked.

- Viva Pinata, got it with my first 360, now loving it.

- Deus Ex 1, got it from Steam sales, thought it was another overrated game, wrong.

Deus Ex: HR

Saints Row

Knights of the Old Republic (Didn't expect it to be THAT good)

Dragon Age Origins

Fallout 3

Magescrew

Oh yes, this one too.

This hole BG Spiritual successor looked nothing like Marketing crap to me, and the game just really didn't looked that impressive, and that hole "New Sh*t" marketing campaign didn't help at all(Marilyn Manson? dafuq? get better taste BioWare).

While i still don't like the marketing campaign, and the hole spiritual successor is up for debate, i ended up not caring.

Edit: oh another one: Team Fortress 2.

I expected it to be just fun, i didn't expected it to make me spend entire nights without sleep.