Okay, I think the topic of the thread says all that needs to be said (besides... I suck at setting these things up)....

That being said, two games off of the top of my head that have just destroyed me at how bad they were compared to earlier games in the series are Assassin's Creed 3 (ahem... 5) & Saints Row: the Third.

To some people these games may be good... great in fact, but to me they both just killed m love for the series. I think my hatred of Assassin's Creed 3 is well documented on the forums, but for those who don't know my feelings already (excuse the lame copy & paste job)...

"Connor is so damn BORING & almost every line he spoke just about put me to sleep. One thing that really bothered me about him was the complete lack of emotion he showed throughout the game.... he just never really seemed to give a damn about anything (SPOILER:such as when Achilles died... I mean he was the closest thing to a real father that he had, *sure Haythem was his biological father, but the man tried to fucking murder him for christsake* & he didn't seem to even remotely care about it END SPOILER). The story was also really lacking if you ask me... I can barely remember anything that happened minus the Tea Party (SPOILER:& that was largely due to the stupid ending scene where he could have clearly killed 2 key templars, but instead decided to drop a tea crate into the ocean END SPOILER), the opening scene with Haythem, the aforementioned Achilles scene, Connor's (admittedly pretty cool) ending & the Desmond Scenes. That being said... lets talk a bit about Desmond's ending. I won't spoil it... but it is it legit the worst ending that I have ever seen in my entire life. I may be in the minority, but I loved Desmond as a character & to see his story end in such a way really pissed me off. I know you are probably thinking that I hate it for what happened to him, but that is not even remotely the case... it is not so much what happened as it is how it was presented. What happens just happens & the camera doesn't even focus on him while it happens... This is the main character of your fucking series, show him at least a semblance of respect & allow there to be at least a little bit of emotion in such a scene. I mean, Damn.... "

As for Saints Row 3... my hatred for this game isn't as well documented..... but I have just as strong feelings towards it. For starters, they killed off the most popular character in the series in the first 15 minutes of gameplay.... & replace him with an auto-tuned pimp & Hulk Hogan in a mask. Thats all I need to say about that....
Next, they changed the formula of the game far too much from the previous games. The one thing I always liked about the previous games is that they gave you the option to do stupid shit if you wanted to, but never really forced it upon you. In this game however, that stupid shit is front & center. Gangs of Luchadors & Nerds? Seriously? Far removed from the gangs of the previous games, right there.
They never finished the Dex story.... He was built up as the main villain of SRIII & then just dropped altogether. I mean the dude wasn't even mentioned once in the entire course of the game.

I have plenty more reasons, but I think I've typed enough for today.

I think that I liked SR3 for precisely the reasons you didn't. It stopped being a GTA clone and revelled in being a game for gaming's sake. One that threw out any notion of taking itself seriously and was almost over-generous in what it thrust upon you. Rather than the usual 'kill twenty guys with a toothpick to get a knuckleduster' approach, it offered the most crazy, over the top action it could dream up from the start right through to the almost apocalyptic end.

I fail to understand how a bad sequel destroys one's enjoyment of the preceding game(s)/movie(s)/book(s). I rarely like any sequel as much as an original, but even if I think they're pathetic and suck monkey balls, it still doesn't destroy my enjoyment of the series up to that point.

I agree about the SR3 part (haven't played AC3 so don't know about that).

The Saints Row series was always the wacky cousin of GTA, but the balance was perfect in SR2. SR3 was just too clownish and over the top and it wasn't fun anymore because of that. Everyone's always blasting your ass away, kinda like in Far Cry 2. The characters are forgettable and unfunny, and the ones that return from SR2 look nothing like in SR2. Finally, selecting missions was poorly executed. You just call a dude? Laaaame. I loved SR2, but SR3 was the biggest disappointment of 2011 to me by a mile. Don't think I want to play SR4, if such is ever made, unless they lower the silliness down a notch or two, so that the game is fun, but not fucking ridiculous. And please ditch the giant purple dildo melee weapon. That's childish, not just silly.

assassin creed should have been what i thought it was when i first saw the trailer, a crusade era game , not sci fi crap

AOE 3. This is what happens when you toy with perfection. While AOE 2 wasn't necissarly realistic, all of the characters and all of the battles and most of the weapons were based on real people places and events. Being able to attack the Great Wall of China was so cool. It wasn't realistic but it was fun. AOE 3 had none of that. The main characters were made up (and kind of silly) the battle fields were made up, and, let me assure you as an American history buff, there were no "flaming ring throwers"! And that stupid trail system. Its my depot, let me put it where I want to! It so limited being able to use the whole screen which basically killed most of the strategy and all of the replayability. A good example of this gripe (then I'll shut up for a while) would be if you google 'AOE2 walkthrough' versus 'AOE3 walkthrough'. For AOE 2 you will find a 100 totally different yet totally viable ways to complete each scenario. For AOE3 there is one per mission, and only one, and trying to veer from it will lead to (not ruin as the game is repulsivly easy) but it will clash with the overly linear setup of each mission thus slowing it down to a crawl. And AOE3 doesn't even look that much better! :(

Dead Rising 2. I hate that game, for no logical reason whatsoever. Also, Far Cry 2 was a load of crap.

Golden Sun Dark Dawn. I'm glad I wasn't one of those fans who waited for this one because it just didn't live up to the original adventure. The graphics don't look as uniquely stylized and the difficulty was really nerfed. You don't have to bother selecting your opponents carefully so you don't kill them in one hit and end up with your entire party set straight to defend, so you can button mash your way through the fights. They even added psynergy that lets you cheat at all the puzzles. And furries. And it created a bunch of unresolved plot issues, which Camelot said they won't resolve unless a bunch of fans get mad and start demanding a fourth game. Stay classy, Camelot. *Dons shades*

I've pondered over this as well. Then again I rather have a half-broken sequel (like Deus Ex Invisible War) than no sequel at all. At best, you enjoy it for what it is and at worst you ignore it.

Or you cover the "deus ex" part of the title and pretend it isn't a sequel.

AC 3 is certainly the (second, after AC 1) weakest in series. I just finished it.

Mainly due to the main character being bland, the game was a buggy mess due to being developed with an unshiftable deadline and the storytelling being somewhat hamfisted.

What makes this even more jarring is the fact that this game could have been a masterpiece. An unbelievably detailed and passionate recreation of the time, a still great and well done core gameplay system and a very smart story are certainly the strong points.

The main character is really bad. Like, really, really bad. The reason for this, and I shit you not (there was a report on NPRs Science Podcast about this) was the fact that all good or decent actors were already "used" by the Twilight Sage (apparently there are a lot of Native Americans in Twilight. The more you know ... ). And decent tween Native American actors are somewhat of a rare commodity. Every cutscene with Connor is really bad.

Also, the story is bad presented. You can literally see different writers sitting on different part of the structure. The main, overlapping story is not a fight for freedom. Quite the contrary. The (rather nihilistic) aesop or theme of the story is futility. It pretty much is already laid out there with the fact that you are playing a Native American supporting the colonial uprising that this won't go will, therefore I hopefully won't spoil that much. But the game makes a clear (well, not that well told) point about the futility of the premise of running around and killing people. In both threads of the story (past and future) it is revealed that the "running and stabbing" approach of the Assassins actually makes things worse and gets you the "worse ending".

Now, this is a very good concept and really interesting to use, especially in videogames. But the way it is done in this game is really gringeworthy. Probably due to writers writing different parts of the story, this doesn't really flesh out that well. A game which somewhat shares this theme is Spec Ops, just as a comparison on how it should be done.

But what takes the "fun" out of the game is the technical side. Oh my god, is this game a botch job. Understandable, as the 21/12/12 was an important date in the game and they obviously wanted their game out before that. Well, that deadline was laid in 2006! Also, the game starts on 30/10/12, the actual street release day of the game. Just to see what kind of strict deadline the devs had.

A few more month would have made this game a masterpiece. It still was a worthy investment due to many really well done parts. Special mention goes to the MP, which is not only great fun but has a great story and atmosphere to boot.

In SR 3 I can beat up hookers with giant purple dildos while being naked. What else is there to say.

No, of course not. It's not secret.

In GTA SA you get to beat up everyone with a big silver dildo; how does this rank next to the hookers with the purple dildo? And wouldn't it be great if someone came in and saw the last few post without seeing the thread title!