Game(s) that were surprisingly good:
Dark Souls: This one I find kinda funny. I had only heard of Demon's Souls in passing and barely knew anything about it besides its extreme difficulty. When Dark Souls was announced my friend hyped it up and I tried it out. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the game.
Dead Space: Dead Space was always a game I knew about but didn't have too much interest in playing. In 2010 Gameinformer started covering Dead Space 2, and had a ton of articles on it the steadily increased my interest. A month before Dead Space 2's release I finally bought Dead Space and well... it's now one of my favorite games of all time.
Game(s) that were surprisingly bad/disappointing:
Dead Island: As a fan of many zombie and open world games, this seemed like a game made in heaven. When I finally got my hands on it however, I was severely disappointed. It was horrendously repetitive and boring, and I couldn't bring myself to keep it more than 2 weeks. It's not often that I feel like I completely wasted money on a game.
Bioshock: I might catch some flak for this one. It wasn't as disappointing as some others because I only bought it for $10, but because it was so hyped up by my friends and everyone in general I had high expectations for it. I didn't feel like it was a bad game, but I couldn't really bring myself to complete it.
That's enough to get the thread started, so what about you guys?