Metal Gear Solid Phantom Pain. Terrible game
I didn't hate it, but it's also my second least-favorite entry in the series. I really hated that open world, it was nothing but a grind, and as I remember, even most of the main story missions were just filler content. The pacing was terrible.
The Epic Games Store is the worst disappointment. I'm not tolerating the practice of paying to keep games off other storefronts, fuck Epic, even if they were the last PC gaming client in the world I wouldn't touch it with a mile-long pole.
It didn't start all that recently, but I'm still feeling extremely disappointed about Prey 2's cancellation.
Yeah, I think MGSV was my biggest let down of recent years. I liked what it tried to do with the more freeform stealth, but it missed the mark IMO and that got tedious really quickly. Ground Zeroes nailed it the best IMO (I put 25 hrs into Ground Zeroes alone, and had almost none of the complaints I had with the main game). They should have made the levels a series of smaller sandboxes like that. That would have also contributed to more environmental variety (the game got boring aesthetically really quickly). Also, seeing a credits sequence for every mission is a joke and the entire fulton system was a tedious, gimmicky chore. The entire game felt like it was made to be a portable experience or something.
Regen health hurt the experience. Health regen has no place in a stealth game IMO. It makes things too forgiving. Just break line of sight for a few seconds, wait for your health to fill back up, and get back at it.
The lack of real bosses in a Metal Gear game is a travesty and made all the antagonists kind of boring. Even the few optional bosses we had were just lame bullet sponges with no real stand out mechanics or personality, and none come off as threatening or intimidating in any kind of way. Not even Sahelanthropus. Quiet was the only good boss fight in the game IMO, and even that was done better before with The End.
The entire story was lacking. I liked the idea of weaponizing language (if for no other reason than originality) but they didn't do near enough with it and the story ended before Skullface made any kind of real impact. Maybe the cut ending had a lot to do with all this and Skull Face was just meant to be a misdirection from the real threat, but it's no excuse. The entire story could be distilled into "a bunch of people want revenge" and you could already see how flimsy it all is. The same motivation for EVERY character, and it's a motivation that's already been explored inside and out in every form of media. The biggest problem with it in Metal Gear is that it really doesn't have anything to say about revenge as a theme. It just is. Plus, most of the story was told through audiotapes, which is as stupid and suboptimal as Destiny's grimoire.
The new Metal Gear was more advanced than MGS1 Metal Gears which made no sense.
They should have had more set pieces in general. The starting chapter of the main game was a phenomenal start, and I wanted to see more of that (though slightly less scripted). None of the following set pieces were as good, and the few we had were interspersed between like 8 missions. Everything else was just filler. You could only do so many trailing, escort, and extraction missions before it gets old.
Other than Kaz, all the characters were pretty forgettable or unlikable (not in a good way). No one else compared to characters like Solid, Gray Fox, Ocelot (Ocelots new voice actor was great, but he did nothing of note all game), The Boss, Meryl, Otacon, Psycho Mantis, Col Campbell, Sniper Wolf, Raiden, or Vamp (and I never even really liked Vamp lol), Solidus, or Adult Liquid. If I had to pinpoint a specific reason, I'd say it's because none of them had any kind of character arc. Everyone ended the game as the same person they were when they started. They especially dropped the ball with Venom Snake (yes the twist was stupid and Hayter is a better Snake, but even disregarding all that, Venom had all the personality of a rock; he was nothing like Big Boss in the previous games) and Skullface (he was a promising villain and phenomenal in Ground Zeroes but criminally underutilized in the main game and he went out in the most anticlimactic way possible).
I don't even know why I typed all that out. I'm pretty sure it's all been said a hundred times by now. I'm just that disappointed I guess.
Also, agreed with everyone who brought up the Epic Games Store.
It's kinda amusing that two of my absolute favourite recent games (FH4 and Division 2) are in your list.
I'm surprised to see both of those on his list too. Especially Forza Horizon 4, which is the most fun I've had with Forza to date (though Motorsport 4 is a strong contender for me). I agree with everything else on his list other than AC Origins (which was passable) though.