3. The Double-Cross
There are countless games where this one has been used - Heavy Rain, Yakuza, and Splinter Cell: Conviction to name but a few - but no developer loves doing it as much - and admittedly with as much style - as Rockstar. Both Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto 3 are about characters who have been stitched up at the start of the game, and spend the rest of it preparing to reap bloody vengeance. Though it's a classic trope from cinema, and it's well-executed in these instances, the law of diminishing returns applies just as it does with any game; keep forcing the same plot down our throats and no matter what new tin of paint you slather over it, we're going to end up getting tired of it. It's an easy way to give us an antagonist right from the get-go, and the implication is that once we've been shot or ripped off by them, it should feel natural rather than contrived for us to want to take them down. The problem is that unless the villain is particularly strong or charismatic, we end up feeling bored by the time we inevitably get to the confrontation, and find it difficult to care, particularly if we and the antagonist are kept apart for the entire game, and we don't get to find much out about them.