6. Misleading Boxes
This was always very frustrating. Game boxes would always display detailed and colourful imagery on the front (like that of the Street Fighter II box above) and screenshots from alternative (and usually better) versions of the game from different platforms on the back (such as the Amiga screenshots on the Commodore 64 version of the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles box above). To a technically knowledgeable person, expectations obviously weren't based on these illustrations. But to a child who didn't know any better, they were representative of the game you were about to play, so it was often a let down when you finally came to play the game you'd actually just purchased and were lumbered with the far more simplistic graphics of the 16 colour Commodore 64.