Crusader Kings 2 and EVE Online. I'll likely never delve into EVE Online because of the nature of the game (no saving) and even if I learn the game it's most likely too time consuming for its own good. I might delve into CK2 to the summer.

Yes. Wargame: European Escalation is one of those. The graphics looked good and in the gameplay trailer it looked like a doable game, but after reading the user reviews about how intricate combat is, how you have to make use of each of your units strengths and weaknesses and make careful use of those, I decided not to install it.

In general RTS games are far too difficult to me. I just cannot concentrate on several tasks or several areas of the map at the same time and when I'm forced to do so I fail miserably. An exception is the single player campaign of Warcraft 3 and when Age of Empires II had just came out I managed to finish the El Cid campaign, but usually, RTS is far too hard to finish and now I don't even want to start most, though I'd like to play massive battles in historical or fantasy settings.

I liked Rome Total War a lot: it separates the management from the combat into separate parts of the same game, one played on a map of the continent, the other on a battle map.

'Deep Strategy' intimidates me as well, as well as any strategy with intricate diplomacy. I suck at power politics and get daunted by deep levels of complexion, like in the Making History game.

Same here, only with Dark Souls II. At first I died so many times in the easy areas that the enemies stopped respawning. But then I got the hang of the game and completed it, even though I had to summon phantoms for some boss fights. Still, that game is one of my big gaming accomplishments.

I mostly don't like RTS games, the micromanagement, the focus on resource gathering, the need to have enough units in enough time and if you didn't do things just right you could screw yourself ultimately became uninteresting enough that the stories involved didn't matter after I had played a handful of them. But, AI: War appealed to me greatly in its concepts and differences enough, after a long time of not having any interest in the genre, I reaaalllly wanted to try it, but was intimidated by it alone first of all, and even moreso because I have limited RTS experience compared to the other types of games I play, so thought it might be too overwhelming or that I'd be at a huge disadvantage for not having played sooo many that it might assume I had played or whatever else. But it had tutorials and I gave it a whirl and I'm learning it and it is fun.

Another game that intimidates me is Capsized. I haven't played a platformer in many years and while it looks awesome and like I could enjoy it once I learn the controls, I'm wary to jump in and try.

The last one that intimidates me is Pathologic. I've read enough to know that I don't know enough to have it go easy when I give it a go, and while that isn't what is intimidating, it's exciting. The intimidation I feel is ofj a different than the other games I mentioned. Not sure how to articulate it, I'll come back to it.

Same here, though I like the game, I never got very far and would have been more fun for me if it had an interactive pause function.

Independence War.

Really, why is that? I enjoyed the entire series so far -- it's among my all-time favorites.

The original Demon's Souls definitely was an unforgiving bitch, though, even more so than the sequels. It's a great game, but it's one of those cases where I wouldn't recommend for new players to start with the first game of the series. DS2 is probably the most player-friendly, while still being surprisingly tough.

^this

Once you've played Dwarf Fortress (or even just proper old school roguelikes) it's hard to be scared by any game's lack of instruction and time taken to learn how to play.
I put quite a few hours into Dwarf Fortress the few times I was into it properly, and if I were to play it again tonight I'd need the wiki open if I was to make it past the first in game day...

Crusader Kings was a walk in the park compared to that.

super meat boy. i am terrible at platformers, and I understand this one is insane.

I just didn't like it the way it worked. They messed up the magic. The bonfire system was very annoying as was the whole open world thing. I liked this whole small words and a nexus thing. Also the hit detection was infuriating at times. It just didn't agree with me haha.

Come to think of it - yesterday I gave The Void a try, or several. It's most beautiful but I think I messed the (6th) start up completely. I was like *yay! survived the 1st cycle for the first time!* and then - death. The autosave is pointless also. Load -> Die. I guess I'm too dumb for this game - I hardly dare to start it again.

The original XCOM's interface was absolutely terrifying.

So many buttons... weird functions... what am I doing... what does this green bar do... why is my orange bar going down... how do I shoot... why did I throw my gun... where's the grenade button...

Yeah. I actually only recently learned what all the interceptor buttons do, but everything about the XCOM interface was a big "no newbies allowed" sign.

To be fair, as much as I enjoyed that game. The interface is fucking horrific. That game did just as much wrong as it did right.

Try this!