My roommate expected to like Star Trek Online because, well, she likes Star Trek. That was a given. What she didn’t expect was to really enjoy the game on its own merits or to find that while the game has broken parts those bits feel oddly right for their broken nature. To her, the bugs and the rough edges feel more like a proper Star Trek game because it’s broken in the same ways the shows frequently are.
My wife had more or less written off Final Fantasy XIV before its relaunch, but when she sat down to play the relaunch, she was almost immediately enraptured by it. The game became our main title and our de facto constant almost by accident. Heck, I myself didn’t expect to be so thoroughly hooked into World of Warcraft that it would become a consistent facet of my life.
We all have played certain titles that just immediately rewrote the book on what we expected from online games. So today, I ask you – what games have unexpectedly hooked you? What title did you expect to just play for a little bit before bouncing off only to find that the game had you deeply entrenched in its systems?