Spore

I know that this game disappointed a lot of people - including myself - especially after advertising itself as 'Massively Singleplayer'.   It was ridiculously over-hyped and there were some features promised that were never delivered.  it was also mercilessly Sims-like; sacrificing science for cuteness.   However I've started playing it again recently without any expectations and found a lot to enjoy.

First of all, it's technically amazing.  The that way creatures are created and animated is a huge feat, I don't think there's a creature that you cannot create.  The same is true with land vehicles, boats, aircraft, spaceships - you can with enough patience create literally everything.  And people have.   They've reproduced all the Star Trek ships and many world-famous buildings - it's possible to create some really sweet stuff.

The biggest satisfaction for me is the fact that your subsequent games become increasingly populated with your creations.  The galaxy is populated entirely by user-created content, with the Sporepedia giving you control on what you want to filter out.  In this way, exploration is infinite because you never quite know what bizarre creature or culture you will come across.

You can even shape planets, the including the one your creature evolved from.  It's pretty inspiring to swoop over the same forest you first hunted for survival in, with your custom-designed spaceship.

As for the gameplay aspects, I would heartily recommend that the hardcore gamer that shunned this game try playing from the start in Hard mode.  It's much, much better and it is quite a significant challenge - unless you're extremely adept you will need to consult strategy guides on how to beat some stages.  Of course, the stages can't compete with fully-fledged RTS or FPS or whatever.

I bought the expansion pack, Galactic Adventures and so far it seems pretty disappointing again.  Sigh.  It still doesn't change the fact that this is a very different kind of game experience, which is something many people seem to want these days.  I just hope that they create a sequel and bring back some of the science that was missing.