What game did you expect to hate but ended up loving it?

For me it was Resident Evil; I'm not a horror kinda guy so I don't like being scared but oh good lord was that game immersive, sure the voice acting was bad and it's dated now but I had an absolute blast.

Another game would be Final Fantasy VIII; I heard so many bad things about the junction system and how difficult the game gets but I had nothing but fun from start to finish.

What games surprised you guys?

Final Fantasy VIII was my favorite of the PS1 FF's at the time, but I'll toss out a few more recent games. Assassin's Creed Unity and The Order: 1886, though I will add I didn't play ACU until several months after everything got patched up.

If we go older, I actually enjoyed Too Human, though it took a few hours to get used to the horrible controls and camera angles, still managed to enjoy it.

Ori & The Blind Forest comes to mind... I certainly didn't think I'd hate it, but I definitely didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Was one of my GOTYs of 2015.

@suicidesn0wman: Never tried The Order myself and currently have no plans too.

Aaru's Awakening

Don't usually buy games I expect to hate. But I suppose Black Ops 2 would fit that bill.

I've played A LOT of bad games, The Order is no where near as bad as some people make it out to be.

Another couple of supposedly terrible games last gen I loved that many hated and I had no expectations for, Red Faction: Armageddon & Syndicate. Ended up being two of my favorites, though Mr Toots had a lot to do with RFA.

I played Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric so I know that The Order will no way in hell be as bad as fanboys and haters claim.

How do you hate something then love it before you try it?

This. The only series I have really changed my opinion on was Mortal Kombat

@Ant_17: You don't, hense "expect to hate".

Dota 2

Shadow of the Colossus I bought the Ico Collection after seeing the X-Play review a few years back. liked the way the art style looked gameplay sounded cool so i thought i would give it a shot. I went into SotC blind to how hard and unforgiving the combat is!

For those who aren't familiar with the basics of SotC combat, you must climb up on top of the boss (colossi) and stab them in the weak spot with your sword while managing a stamina bar.what makes this hard is the colossi will try to shake you off while holding onto it, and once you get to the weak spot you might not have enough stamina to attack it or you run out of stamina than fall off and had to try the whole thing over again. while the colossi is shaking it's impossible to attack it you just half to hold on and wait for it to stop to either try to attack it or regain your stamina.

My first playthrough was really rough spend over an hour with a couple of the bosses. After a little bit of practice i'm much more familiar with the mechanics now where i can enjoy it

Demon's Souls i wasn't sure i was going to like this one after hearing the game was supposed to be super hard but after betting the first level Boletarian Palace 1-1 and a few level after that the game started getting easier still hard some of the bosses were really tough Maneater, Flamelurker etc. but i fall in love will the co-op part of the game the soul series are by far my favorite multiplayer games now.

Persona 4 Golden- didn't care for the vanilla game, didn't think I'd like it now. I was wrong.

Bloodborne- had never been able to get into Souls, and I fully expected to give up on this by the first boss. Completed it, got two endings, too

Xenoblade 3D- same with Persona, I'd played the original, didn't like it. Love it on 3DS.

Same here. It was my GOTY for 2015. I was blown away by the atmosphere of it.

Final Fantasy XIII, funny though everyone looking forward to it ended up hating it instead.

Dead Space 3, it was probably the demo I found most discouraging but the actual game was quite a worthy successor. Goes to show it pays to ignore the mob.

Metroid Other M, went into this with cynicism of the reviews and trash talking against it. But all it took was a little kind bud to hit reset on my my mind, and free it of the negative influences, then I found myself liking it quite a bit after that.

Dues Ex Human Revolution. To an extent still takes flack from 5 PC gamers, and does have relatively uneeded wall-cover... a very good game.

The order 1866 actually. The graphics thou

Only one I can think of is SMITE. MOBAs usually suck but this one on Xbox hooked me. Love that game

Freedom Planet. The characters looked straight out of something that you might see on deviant art, but I tried it out since it had such a positive rating on steam, and it was only $5 during a humble bundle. It turns out the game was not just good, but fantastic.

Sleeping Dogs. I thought it didn't look like anything special, but my friend insisted on me to play it. Good thing I listened to him, because I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Sonic Colors. I distinctly remember both me and my brother being amazed at how not only simple things like the camera were working, but that the game itself was actually really fun. Colors totally caught us both by surprise, especially me, since I had checked out after Heroes.

Valkyria Chronicles. I don't play many rpgs, let alone tactical based ones, so I didn't bother playing this game until recently. It's pretty good to say the least, and I love that I can actually control my units since they are not stuck to a grid like in something such as Fire Emblem. I also really dig the Skies of Arcadia representation, with Vyse, Aika, and Fina being a part of your squad.

Hyperdimension Neptunia, was expecting dumb, and got dumb but of a ridiculously enjoyable kind

@mems_1224: Wonderful game, wish I had the time to fully sink into it but when I do, that'll be a definite.

Dawn of War 2 (never played DoW 1)- after looking at some screen shots I was like meh, then got DoW 2 Chaos Rising for free with a graphics card I got (think it was a nvidia 650 or lower), tried it out a few months later and been in love with the DoW games since.

Until Dawn- literally had 0 hype or interest in this game, thought it was just gonna be a meh Heavy Rain clone but holy crap was I wrong.

Galak-Z- Pretty much a pity buy for $9 cause the concept looked cool but I despise these type of games, after the first few moments into the game I got hooked

Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door

Hate is quite difficult. It's rare that I'd end up buying/owning a game that I'd expect to hate in the first place, If I do, it comes in a bundle or gotten for free, even then, chances are, I wont even bother to play that game. I just assume the people that commit to buy a game that they expect to hate are the people too invested to their internet voice that feel the need to buy a game to reinforce their forum opinions or whatever; something I noticed alot about people here with Fallout 4.

The only one I can think of recently that comes close is Tales From the Borderlands.

I got this with a create your own Telltale Bundle on the Humble Store. Got 3 games from it: Game of Thrones, Walking Dead: Season 2 and Tales from the Borderlands for like $10. I've generally liked Telltale games, old and new despite the formula they've been sticking to and the abandonment of puzzle-solving. I heard some mixed but good things about them, but I played the OG Walking dead, so I had an interest to play the 2nd season, I have an interest in ASOIAF to play Game of Thrones and while I dislike Borderlands, It was the one that I heard alot of good things about. I was a little skeptical since it's Borderlands, so it was the game I left till last to play from the 3.

My interest in the developer started to wane once I started to play them. The Walking Dead: Season 2 was predictable and a lesser experience than the first season. Game of Thrones was pretty terrible and it failed to properly conclude itself.

Then I played Tales from the Borderlands. It was so damn good to the point where it completely restored my faith for the developer after the sour experience from the other two. It doesnt break away from the usual formula, but it still manages to be enjoyable and full of surprises. It's funny, it has a great cast of characters, the plotting is excellent, the direction is top notch, the 'choices' are more about the comedic tone you want and the visuals fit in with the Borderlands universe quite naturally compared to the other Telltale games. It's the best Boderlands game and the best TALES JRPG.

The only one I could think of is Smash Bros. Melee for the GC. Me and some friends (who started playing it way before me) played it one day, and I absolutely hated the game. I thought it was just messy nonsense. Then I started to understand things more and more (since they pretty much forced me to play the damn game) and I soon couldn't get enough of it. Today I'm a hooked Smash player, and way better than my friends. :P

I wouldn't say hate but my answer is Risen. I bought it expecting to half finish it but I ended up finishing it and thoroughly enjoying it.

Hearthstone

I thought it was gonna be P2W but it wasn't from my experience. You can make good decks just by doing the daily quests, tavern brawl and disenchanting cards you don't need. You probably won't become a "pro" as a F2P player but you'll definitely get far (if you're good that is).

Probably Little Big Planet comes to mind. I honestly thought it was going to be boring and a Mario rip-off of some sorts but after plying the first game, I really like it, I didn't expect to be this fun and Little Big Planet caught me by surprise.

I didn't expect to like the Last of Us given my complete hate of Uncharted 2, but some how the same developers managed to make something quite good.

Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger was very positive suprise. Campaign was a blast and the arcade mode really fun as well. Arkham Asylum: A not just good but great superhero game. Totally unexpected.

I didn't like playing Bioshock at first, the gunplay felt weak and I just wasn't sucked into the world. After some 3 tries or so, I ended up loving the entire series. It's definitely one of my favourite shooters today.

Same for Assassin's Creed 1. Tried it two times or so and I always got bored. But the third time it clicked with me, I genuinely felt like an assassin. The mission structure was and is still boring. But I have a lot of fun with the games now. I've played every single assassin's creed game (sans mobile ones or Liberation)

Far Cry 4. I never played FC 3 and I absolutely hated 2 so I didn't think 4 would be that great. Picked it up on sale and now I absolutely love it.

Farcry 4.

Shadows of the Damned.

The Walking Dead.

Tales From The Borderlands.

Unfinished Swan.

Beyond Good and Evil HD.

Dragon Age origins.

last 3 from ps Plus free games.

Snake Rattle and Roll. Went in to Toys R Us to get Double Dragon for my birthday, mom said she wouldn't buy a violent game, and thought that Snake Rattle and Roll looked "cool," and she'd buy that. Went home disappointed; but that turned into enthusiasm as I played the game and if became one of my all time favorites.

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood.

The only one I can think of is Final Fantasy XII. Didn't think I would like it but it ended up being one of my favorites in the franchise.

• Persona 4 Golden- I didn't expect to enjoy it since a) it's apparently excessive anime-like direction style (turned out to be much more than excessive) didn't appeal to me b) I was under the impression it was largely a dating sim c) I've never been a big fan of high school settings. The excessive anime-like direction style turned out to be charming in most cases and annoying yet tolerable in others. The dating sim complaint, I realized, was a gross generalization, and it was only a fraction of the entire game. The high school setting was handled very well, so I was happy with it. All in all a great game.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising- I'd heard a lot of criticism for how it controls, and from the reviews and videos I'd read/watched, I didn't think its corny writing would appeal to me much. I ended up getting it nonetheless. The controls are often a massive clusterfuck, but I ended up enjoying the game despite them, somehow. The online aspect also gave me plenty of playtime. And the writing is actually pretty neat.
• The Witcher 3- I could never get into Witcher. Tried to play both 1 and 2, but I could never stick with them. I decided to buy TW3 after I got caught up in the hype, but there was a large part of me that almost knew I wouldn't like the game. A few months later, and this is one of my favourite games of all time.
• Animal Crossing: New Leaf- Best timesink ever. Never expected to like it, not even slightly. I've never been too much into Animal Crossing, but I decided to give New Leaf a try since the mayor aspect seemed interesting. I've now clocked in over 150 hours, and enjoyed every last minute. Best part is, I don't even know why.

Saw interesting videos of Divinity Original Sin and really wanted to play it but I was also afraid that I may not like it because it has turn based combat and it's been a long time since I played a traditional cRPG.

I gave it a try and gave up after few hours. Then I came back to it and learned ins and outs of the game by spending 8+ hours. Then after that I was hooked and couldn't stop playing the game. It was pure 70+ hours of fun experience that made the game my GOTY for 2014.

The Order: 1886

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

Driveclub.

Yakuza Dead Soul!

monster hunter. the first monster i tried was tri (i refused to try it on the PSP with the claw setup....nooo thankyou). i got it because i heard good things and it's one of those games everyone should try once (and tri is a very good starting point....tri ultimate especially as the difficulty curve is a bit more forgiving).

but i should hate monster hunter. 2 things i hate in games: grinding and time limits.

120 hours later...i think i like monster hunter. its the one game where a time limit actually makes sense and the combat and monsters are fun to fight so i dont mind the grinding.

just..c'mon capcom. bring 4 ultimate to the wiiu already and stop the messing! i dont want to play it on a handheld.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Assassins Creed Syndicate

Dark Souls (Ending up being on of my favorite games of all time)

Until Dawn

Undertale

The praise for it was overly crazy. I thought it was gonna turn out to be another "To the Moon", a game that I strongly disliked. However, Undertale actually turned out to one of my favorite games of the year. Guess the internet can be right (sometimes.)

Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored, Watch_Dogs and maybe Dark Souls & Divinity Original Sin. Thief triolgy will probably be next too, need to try it after I finish some games.

Assassins Creed IV - I was full of AC hate after three and took every opportunity to criticise them for another annual release, but it ended up being one of my favourite games of the year and easily my favourite in the series

Telltale's The Walking Dead - I really dislike the TV show and assumed this was a low-quality spinoff, but ended up loving it

Rainbow 6 Siege. I normally don't buy games without a campaign and the beta never clicked for me but a couple of my friends kept saying how good it was so I decided to buy it when it was on sale and ended up loving it.