10 Annoying Video Game Mechanics That Need To Die
6. Dialogue Trees
Dialogue trees are different from dialogue choices because all they are glorified exposition dumps. You walk up to an NPC and cycle through option after option, learning nothing but background. It's a lazy way for a character to drop a location's name and then justify not explaining it through clever dialogue.
It would be better or equally well served if the character just recited the entire list of dialogue that can arise from a single tree. It makes it easy to dump exposition without weaving it into the story.
It would be like a book slapping an appendix at the beginning and forcing you to learn all the exposition before you actually got going.