This is a rather subjective piece and contains possibly offensive opinions. If you disagree, just reply with an analysis why I am wrong.

1. DLC spam

DLC per se is not a bad thing. If you do it right, people can like it. What I talk about is the DLC spam that we saw on several modern titles like Civilization 5, Borderlands 2, etc.

There is the main game, and then there is a plethora of DLC, some of which is story DLC, some of which is not. My only advise for such games is to wait until all DLC is finally released and then buy it all together. How do you know all DLC is released? Well, either there is a Gold version, the next game in the series is out, or the developer is bankrupt.

Seen in: Many games

2. Pretending everyone is an idiot

If you want to make a tutorial, it is fine. But don't force us through the tutorial. If I have to play some new game and can't figure out the controls, let me see the controls at any time. If I don't understand the mechanics, let me do a tutorial or explain it with some ingame text. Do not force me through the tutorial, if I don't need it.

Seen in: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, probably many others

3. Fail-proof difficulty or too high difficulty

Let people suffer if they want to. Make a difficulty that is always fair but challenging. Don't make games too easy or too hard. It is annoying if you can essentially breeze through a game unless that game is of the kind to breeze through, but also annoying if the game leaves you no chance at all. Let us set the difficulty we want, please. If you want to finish your RPG in 20 hours, so be it, but let me fight against the ultra-hard enemies for 100 hours!

Seen in: Many titles, gladly avoided also by many. As an example, Last Dream lets you set the difficulty in several levels and the highest IS a challenge while all others are more suitable for gamers that want to progress without too much grind.

4. Multiple playthroughs enforced to unlock game options

Do you like it if you play through a game and only after you finished it, the highest difficulty is unlocked? No? I also don't! Let me choose the difficulty I want, etc.
If you want multiple playthroughs for achievements, that is a different thing but also not nice.

Seen in: Duke Nukem Forever (that fangame from Gearbox Software, not the "more real" DNF that was released as a Duke Nukem 3D mod), DeathSpank 3

5. Multiple playthroughs needed for 100 percent completion

I finished the story. Why do I need to finish it again? This applies not if the game is different, i.e. different character classes in Diablo 2 are a nice example of multiple playthroughs that are acceptable.

Seen in: Deus Ex 3, Dishonored, etc. (both examples debatable), but also many games still avoid it.

6. Missable collectibles or collectibles distracting from the gameplay

What is the reason why I need to find intel in FPS games? When the setting fits and nothing is missable, I am fine with collectibles - in Far Cry 3, GTA, etc. they enhance the fun - but there are genres where collectibles just don't fit. Also, it is NOT fun for me to have to use a guide all the time just to make sure I miss nothing, instead of being able to play.

Seen in: Spec Ops: The Line, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Bioshock Infinite, etc.

EDIT:
and

1. Yup, pretty much what I was saying back about 2009ish. Also, there's nothing wrong with free DLC, but paying any real amount of money (like Tales of Graces: whatever-the-localized-name-is has you pay for extra costumes and apparel) for an extra costume or weapon is just not right.
2. Not only that, but realizing that there is really no danger that you don't create. I.e., I sit behind rock, allies can't die anyway, why should I cover them? Why is that spot so much better for a dust off than this one? It's safer. Stuff like that.
Also, every Halo game I've played had a pseudo tutorial bit that I just don't get. It's rated M and I'm not expected to know how to "look?"
4. I agree, this is annoying.
5. Especially because you never had to replay certain areas to death and sucked the enjoyment out of it. Combine with 2. and you have a real winner.
6. Artificially lengthening a 3-5 hour game. What do you even get for finding all the laptops, anyway?

Level scaling...

When you say "DLC spam", you also get me thinking about the shameless marketing of DLC in-game, which also irritates the fuck out of me.

"You can't play this obviously missing section of the game until you pay for our grossly overpriced DLC package!"

"Yeah, well, fuck you!" A symptom of the sorts of people that gaming has attracted unfortunately. A lot of gamers are idiots. That's always been a problem though, and it's not one that has an easy solution. Difficulty is a subjective thing. I've just breezed through Super Mario 3D Land without ever seeing a game over screen, other people struggle to get through it. Not sure I agree with Bioshock Infinite as many of the collectables do add to the story - they fill in pieces of the backstory (I assume you're talking about the voxophones and kinetoscopes).

You did miss one of the worst offenders ever in the 'missing collectibles' segment though - Assassin's Creed! Those fucking flags did my head in!

1- While I understand the point, DLC can be safely ignored or you can wait for a gold edition as you say. Doesn't bother me all that much. That said, Borderlands 2 did bring out more DLC after the GOTY edition.

2- I agree with this, specially on an FPS. If you have some peculiar new mechanic you want to show us, go ahead, but it's seriously annoying to be "tought" how to crouch on each game.

3- Difficulty settings should indeed indicate what they are. If I choose hard it should be a challenge, if I choose easy it shouldn't. That said, we each have a different comfort zone, so the more options here the better. And this isn't a problem of only new games, mind you.

4- Depends how this goes. On a game such as Borderlands or DMC, if you are start on a higher difficulty setting without the gear you've gained on the first playthrough you'd be instantly killed. On a Max Payne? yeah, I want to play hard from the get go on that one, thank you very much.

5- What's the problem here? I don't quite get it. If the game has a roleplay component or branching storylines, and you go through one, it stands to reason you'd have to go through it again to see the other options. You don't have to though, if you are satisfied with that one first playthrough.

6- Missable collectibles are a problem because if you feel the need to get them all, you might be forced to start again if you do miss them. However, if you take them as an extra crap on the game, you can just get the ones you find and don't give a second thought to the ones you missed. It would be a problem if the game forced you to collect all collectibles, but I have yet to find that game. Except for Shadowman, perhaps.

All in all, I think you're looking for problems and ways to ruin your gaming time that you could just ignore. Why don't you forget the collectibles and whatnot, and enjoy the game itself?

I remember when I was new to GOG and Alan Wake went on sale. I'd never heard of it, and it looked sinister and engrossing. I watched a Let's Play just to be sure, and within the first few moments, Alan picked up a cup of coffee at the end of a bridge and the screen flashed something like COFFEE 1 OUT OF 80. In that moment, the whole setting just evaporated for me and I decided against it.

I would go even further to include unlocking game content in general. FTL is a pretty fun game, but when you start out you only get the first ship and have to unlock all the other ships. basically, you have to play the lame stuff for hours, devoting several of your tries just to unlocking content. That's stupid, why can't I fly the cool ships right from the start? Yes, some ships are better than other, but who cares? In AD&D the cleric class is arguably more powerful than others, but you can still pick a cleric from the start of the game.

Luckily there is a tool for FTL that lets me unlock things as I please, but I can't do that on the iPad. As long as there is not even a cheat to unlock content I won't even consider buying the iPad version.
http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10959

I would add in political correctness.

Meat Loaf - Running Away From Me

National censorship, regional pricing, etc. is just as bad, but it isn't a pest of gaming but rather of publishing.

More often than not, it seems, publishers themselves is a pest of gaming.

I only buy Gold versions of games and was frustrated when there was a diamond version of NWN. ><! this and DRM.

BTW: Why do female characters get no strength malus in games and never get menstruation problems? ;)
Give them some charisma bonus instead if you wish, but it's just PI bullshit the way it's handled for ages.

Mind you, but these are only minus if you care about them.

Stop caring about them and problem is solved just like that.

I agree with pretty much every point, except for the replaying the game one (and, to an extent, the collectibles).

I'm in the mid-range of GOG users, not too old, not too young (I'm 30-ish), and I had to grow up with only one or two video games to play, per year, so I played them, plus the old ones I already had. I never quite understood the "replayability" issue most gamers have, especially in recent times, it didn't seem to be a bullet-point in reviews when I was growing up... if I enjoy a game and its story, why not revisit it and play it as much as I like? Are games like food, you eat it, you dump it, and that's that?! I've read most of my favourite books time and time again, even though the stories/poems/subjects in them are always the same. Why is it so bad to replay through a video game campaign after we have beaten it once? People brought up Alan Wake, well, I love replaying Alan Wake, looking at all the environment details, going through the story all over again, multiple times -- yes, it's the same thing over and over, but I always find something I missed or had forgotten from my last play through of it, and that, itself, adds to whatever "replayability" the game may lack to most gamers out there. I've replayed Grim Fandango, Silent Hill 2, Psychonauts, Sanitarium, Broken Sword 1, Terranigma, A Link to the Past, Earthworm Jim 1&2, Soul Reaver, etc. more times than I care to count, and I'll keep replaying all those titles and more whenever I feel like going back into their awesome worlds and reliving their stories.

It really saddens me that so many of us invest huge amounts of money on new gaming platforms, then more money upgrading them, and even more money on software they'll only enjoy once. I don't have a huge backlog -- I don't even own thousands of games, for that matter --, but the games I have, I sure as hell enjoyed them multiple times, or I wouldn't have spent money on them in the first place. I don't want my shelves to be museums of games I finished once, nor my computer a digital depository of "video game gems" waiting to be played, just so I can feel better because "I OWN THEM" and am, therefore, part of an elite community of nerdy people who talk a lot about them, even though they only played them once/never played them at all.

I read the title of this topic as "Sex Pests of modern gaming"

Not sure if I should feel worried or disappointed.

Now that's better. I swear, I fear for humanity at times just on the basis of my daily encounters of so many morons.

I'm an asshole... and I like it! =P