9 "Hated" Video Games You Should Play In 2020

1. Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War

Testament to the power of people voting with their wallets, Shadow of War was easily one of the worst examples of a publisher crowbarring microtransactions into a game that didn't need them whatsoever, only to have sales tail off immediately after launch.

The "loot system" didn't even make sense in lore, either. Monolith were forced to create "orc crates" that a dealer would ship to you, revealing random assortments of fighters you could pit against the A.I.

In short, taken alongside "Sexy Shelob" and the PR nightmare that was Warner Bros. profiting from a charity created to honour a team member that passed during development, many hand-waved the game away, and it sold less than Shadow of Mordor by a considerable margin.

After all that though, WB finally saw sense.

It took until July 2018 (almost a year later), but Shadow of War was patched to remove all microtransactions. The orc crates disappeared, and any money you'd put into the game was transformed into golden chests to open instead.

Perhaps too little, too late if you'd slogged through its predatory systems beforehand, but Shadow of War has excellent combat, and it's procedurally generated "Nemesis system" is some of the most fun you can have with any assortment of A.I. in any action game.