History DisappointingLastLevel / FirstPersonShooter

** The original game ends with you facing a Spider Mastermind as the FinalBoss... whose wide size makes her an easy target to hit, she has a chaingun that is easy to interrupt and less effective the further you're away from, and she has less HP than the missile-firing Cyberdemon, making her rather underwhelming in contrast to the latter, especially if you use the {{BFG}}, which due to its mechanics allows one to kill her in, at maximum, two hits. The level you face her in, "Dis" is also a very poor design, a simple passage leading to a large open clover leaf-shaped area with a single building in the middle containing a Megaarmor and a Plasma Gun, a ramp running around the outside containing a couple of rockets, and a mere ''three'' other monsters[[note]]a Baron of Hell and 2 Cacodemons, and the Baron doesn't even spawn on the two lower difficulty levels[[/note]] whose inclusion alongside the Spider Mastermind feels practically token. Fortunately, the fourth episode added in ''The Ultimate Doom'' makes her much more dangerous with the addition of more enemies and a much more tightly-cramped arena to let her do some serious damage. [[spoiler:And then in ''VideoGame/Doom2016'', she TookALevelInBadass.]]

* In the last twenty minutes of ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]'' you go from being a time-slowing badass fighting really clever AI soldiers, to being in ''Film/TheGrudge'' and fighting waves of copy and paste "ghosts" whose AI is "See the PC; run directly at PC" and which all die in a single shot while all the guns available to you [[NoGearLevel are replaced with a single pistol]] for no reason, making the end section quite tedious despite its short length.

** ''Vegas 2'' starts on this with the penultimate level. Since story-wise your teammates have to go help the previous game's protagonist, you're left entirely on your own for it, with a [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper useless NSA agent]] who isn't even on the ground with you as your only support, trying to shoot your way through massive groups of enemies who cannot be stealthily picked off and will instantly kill you if you get up out of cover for more than a few seconds to find and shoot them. On at least one occasion the level forces you into an intense shootout in an area with almost no good cover and ''four'' paths for the enemy to flank you, with more enemies spawning in every time you try to make ''five feet'' of progress past the opening room. The final level starts getting back on track, with you having not only your full team again but even getting support from a second team for the first time since the prologue... but then dumps itself right back into this trope in the last five minutes, right as one of your teammates gets incapacitated by a bomb on a door before he can disarm it. Four guys with shotguns immediately fast-rope into the tiny room you're in, right next to you and your remaining teammate, ready to instantly kill you if you don't react in the correct way within three seconds. Four ''more'' guys wait on the floor above overlooking the room, ready to plug you when you head out to help your downed teammate. Bishop demands to fight the BigBad on their own once you get past this room, and for the trouble, you get [[spoiler:an old fashioned {{trial and error|Gameplay}} PuzzleBoss battle with fifty guys and a helicopter gunship]].

* ''VideoGame/MedalofHonorPacificAssault'' goes downhill with the final missions set on Tarawa, it starts being heavily scripted, with instant death triggers that spawn mortars on you if you don't do things the game developers want you do and generally all of the game's short-comings are actively used against you, such as machine gun nests that are near-impossible to snipe due to wonky hitboxes, a lack of health and just in general having level design designed to kill you in unfair ways.

** The trend continues in ''VideoGame/DeusExMankindDivided''. For the first time in the franchise, a level (the final mission) takes place in London... which amounts to a couple of floors in a highrise building in the city. Halfway through the mission, you're forced to make a SadisticChoice between saving a group of delegates you've only just met and preventing the villain from bombing a nearby apartment complex (which is barely shown on-screen), plus another character who can die unless you have a plot-required item. The choice probably would have had more teeth if the room where the delegates are didn't have a secret tunnel that leads directly to the final boss, a lackluster affair. Much has been made of the fact that [[spoiler:Viktor Marchenko]] is just a BossInMookClothing, who can be effortlessly taken down in a half-dozen ways with no real problem. And then there's the ending itself, where almost all of the lingering plot threads are wrapped up in a ''newscast''. Even with the variation from the aforementioned choice, the game ends with a pair of short conversations (Adam tells Vega to set up a meeting with Janus, while TheStinger reveals that [[spoiler:Adam is an UnwittingPawn of the Illuminati]]) that are generally seen as unsatisfying. Even now, most reviews of the game highlight the lackluster ending.

** For ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'', Liberty Island is ''very'' underwhelming, especially to anyone who's played the first game. Not only is the level comparatively smaller than its original incarnation, but it's broken up into two sections (caused by the console-focused development). There isn't a whole lot to do on the island besides kill, kill and kill some more, and it's incredibly easy for major characters like Tracer Tong or Paul Denton to be killed off anticlimactically. Also, it doesn't help that the endings all feel unsatisfying and extremely short, with little in the way of resolution or falling action. That said, all the major story twists are resolved in the Trier level. The levels which follow this are all almost entirely action based, without any of the more immersive touches seen in the earlier levels of the game.

** The trend continues in ''VideoGame/DeusExMankindDivided''. For the first time in the franchise, a level (the final mission) takes place in London... which amounts to a couple of floors in a highrise building in the city. Halfway through the mission, you're forced to make a SadisticChoice between saving a group of delegates you've only just met and preventing the villain from bombing a nearby apartment complex (which is barely shown on-screen), plus another character who can die unless you have a plot-required item. The choice probably would have had more teeth if the room where the delegates are didn't have a secret tunnel that leads directly to the final boss, a lackluster affair. Much has been made of the fact that [[spoiler:Viktor Marchenko]] is just a BossInMookClothing, who can be effortlessly taken down in a half-dozen ways with no real problem. And then there's the ending itself, where almost all of the lingering plot threads are wrapped up in a ''newscast''. Even with the variation from the aforementioned choice, the game ends with a pair of short conversations (Adam tells Vega to set up a meeting with Janus, while [[spoiler:Adam is an UnwittingPawn of the Illuminati]]) that are generally seen as unsatisfying. Even now, most reviews of the game highlight the lackluster ending.

** In the first ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', the end boss "fight" comes right in the middle of a huge battle with no forewarning. Also, literally half the Middle Eastern campaign (i.e. everything after the nuke goes off) was cut from the game, which presumably would've balanced out the rushed feeling of the end of the SAS campaign.

** ''Modern Warfare 3'', given that half the staff left partway through production, suffers badly from this. After several stunning and memorable levels, Act III extensively reuses assets from previous levels and games. And the ''entire plotline'' about the war between Russia and the United States and the rogue Russian military is wrapped up in a single cutscene. Luckily, the ''actual'' last level (which is more of an epilogue, really) is pretty cathartic.

** ''Vegas 2'' starts on this with the penultimate level. Since story-wise your teammates have to go help the previous game's protagonist, you're left entirely on your own for it, with a [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper useless NSA agent]] who isn't even on the ground with you as your only support, trying to shoot your way through massive groups of enemies who cannot be stealthily picked off and will instantly kill you if you get up out of cover for more than a few seconds to find and shoot them. On at least one occasion the level forces you into an intense shootout in an area with almost no good cover and ''four'' paths for the enemy to flank you, with more enemies spawning in every time you try to make ''five feet'' of progress past the opening room. The final level starts getting back on track, with you having not only your full team again but even getting support from a second team for the first time since the prologue... but then dumps itself right back into this trope in the last five minutes, right as one of your teammates gets incapacitated by a bomb on a door before he can disarm it. Four guys with shotguns immediately fast-rope into the tiny room you're in, right next to you and your remaining teammate, ready to instantly kill you if you don't react in the correct way within three seconds. Four ''more'' guys wait on the floor above overlooking the room, ready to plug you when you head out to help your downed teammate. Bishop demands to fight the BigBad on their own once you get past this room, and for the trouble you get [[spoiler:an old fashioned {{trial and error|Gameplay}} PuzzleBoss battle with fifty guys and a helicopter gunship]].

* Xen from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}}. First, you have to get to grips with the wonky long-jump mechanics to do first-person platforming challenges in what is essentially an empty void. Then you have to fight a DamageSpongeBoss designed to look like a massive ballsack. And then you reach a factory portion where you have to fight very strong enemies in cramped locations and deal with weird spinny elevators and containers that spawn even more very strong enemies. And after all that ends, you then have to fight a final boss that is irritatingly both a damage-sponge ''and'' a PuzzleBoss. The whole place is incredibly dreary, and there are almost no human characters, with the tactical combat that the game pioneered being completely absent. Which is unfortunate, as the Xen levels have the best art style in the entire game, enhance the sense of solitude for the climactic final battle that's fast approaching, give a nice look at the alien home world (for too long, however), and if the lack of playtesting had not made it repetitive and boring, it could have been a ''very'' satisfying conclusion. Notably, the FanRemake ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'' didn't release with the Xen chapters as the devs wanted to do all they can to make that part of the game less tedious... and as a perfect encapsulation of just how monumental a task that must be, the first teaser only came out [[ScheduleSlip more than six years later]]. Fortunately, if the public beta is anything to go by, they seem to have succeeded.
* Weirdly enough, ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' seems to have avoided some of the hate, even though it has similar problems. A forced change in weapons makes everything learned in the first 90% of the game save for how to use the Gravity Gun somewhat pointless, the environment is very repetitive, and the player is forced not once, but twice, to make the same ''[[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption stupid decision]]'' to deliver yourself into captivity. The final "boss" encounter isn't all that exciting either - extremely basic platforming for two minutes and then throwing energy balls into a stationary target while small groups of enemies occasionally come to shoot at you, who are barely a threat whether you acknowledge them (since your weapon kills everything in one hit) or not (since a side-effect of your weapon's supercharge also doubles your armor, so they can barely hurt you at this point) - and the game ends on a blatant cliffhanger. Still, the [[EleventhHourSuperpower supercharged Gravity Gun]] is a hell of a lot of fun, which may be why people were more lenient on this ending's faults.

** The finale of The Sacrifice comes off as disappointing and underwhelming to many people because of the level design. Storywise, the map makes sense since it's where the survivors are last seen and are seen again in the same area in The Passing in ''Left 4 Dead 2''. Gameplaywise, you have to start up 3 generators to get the bridge to work and every generator summons a horde of zombies and a Tank, so you spend the the final level just fighting for an extended period of time. The actual sacrifice itself is also underwhelming because, due to limits of the Source engine, the character who sacrifices themselves simply goes to reactivate the nearest generator, and then is shown to be knocked down by a rock thrown from an off-screen Tank and lies there helplessly as the zombies rush in to pounce on them. Assuming they actually make it - since the finale requires exactly ''one'' character to leave safety, run out into the open and then hit the generator, it is all too easy for the entire finale to be lost simply because a Tank spawned close enough to block that player's path to the generator.

** The original game ends with you facing a Spider Mastermind as the FinalBoss... whose wide size makes her an easy target to hit, she has a chaingun that is easy to interrupt and less effective the further you're away from, and she has less HP than the missile-firing Cyberdemon, making her rather underwhelming in contrast to the latter, especially if you use the {{BFG}}, which due to its mechanics allows one to kill her in, at maximum, two hits. The level you face her in, "Dis" is also a very poor design, a simple passage leading to a large open clover leaf-shaped area with a single building in the middle containing a Megaarmor and a Plasma Gun, a ramp running around the outside containing a couple of rockets, and a mere ''three' other monsters[[note]]a Baron of Hell and 2 Cacodemons, and the Baron doesn't even spawn on the two lower difficulty levels[[/note]] whose inclusion alongside the Spider Mastermind feels practically token. Fortunately, the fourth episode added in ''The Ultimate Doom'' makes her much more dangerous with the addition of more enemies and a much more tightly-cramped arena to let her do some serious damage. [[spoiler:And then in ''VideoGame/Doom2016'', she TookALevelInBadass.]]

** The original game ends with you facing a Spider Mastermind as the FinalBoss... whose wide size makes her an easy target to hit, she has a chaingun that is easy to interrupt and less effective the further you're away from, and she has less HP than the missile-firing Cyberdemon, making her rather underwhelming in contrast to the latter, especially if you use the {{BFG}}, which due to its mechanics allows one to kill her in, at maximum, two hits. Fortunately, the fourth episode added in ''The Ultimate Doom'' makes her much more dangerous with the addition of more enemies and a much more tightly-cramped arena to let her do some serious damage. [[spoiler:And then in ''VideoGame/Doom2016'', she TookALevelInBadass.]]

* Xen from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}}, with annoying jumping puzzles, extremely unbalanced gameplay and extremely unbalanced gameplay ''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs during]]'' [[PlatformHell annoying jumping puzzles]]. Which is unfortunate, as the Xen levels have the best art style in the entire game, enhance the sense of solitude for the climactic final battle that's fast approaching, give a nice look at the alien home world (for too long, however), and if the lack of playtesting had not made it repetitive and boring, it could have been a ''very'' satisfying conclusion. Notably, the FanRemake ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'' didn't release with the Xen chapters as the devs wanted to do all they can to make that part of the game less tedious... and as a perfect encapsulation of just how monumental a task that must be, the first teaser only came out [[ScheduleSlip more than six years later]]. Fortunately, if the public beta is anything to go by, they seem to have succeeded.

** ''Doom II'''s final boss is ''literally a wall texture'' whose only attack is to endlessly spit out cubes [[MookMaker which spawn in monsters]]. To make things worse, in order to hit its weak point, you have to ride an elevator upwards and fire a rocket with precise timing, as the elevator goes past said weakpoint. Did we mention that it's set up so that it's only vulnerable to the rocket launcher, and you're completely exposed to the attacking monsters on said elevator? Source ports which support mouse aiming make it even more of a joke, where you don't even need to ride that elevator - get up to the switch to activate it, turn around, aim up just slightly, and you can kill it before any of the spawn cubes have even landed.

** ''Doom II'''s final boss is ''literally a wall texture'' whose only attack is to endlessly spit out cubes [[MookMaker which spawn in monsters]]. To make things worse, in order to hit its weak point, you have to ride an elevator upwards and fire a rocket with precise timing, as the elevator goes past said weakpoint. Did we mention that it's set up so that it's only vulnerable to the rocket launcher, and you're completely exposed to the attacking monsters on said elevator?

* Weirdly enough, ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' seems to have avoided some of the hate, although it has similar problems. A forced change in weapons makes everything learned in the first 90% of the game somewhat pointless, the environment is very repetitive, and the player is forced not once, but twice, to make the same ''[[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption stupid decision]]'' to deliver yourself into captivity. The final "boss" encounter isn't up to much either - extremely basic platforming for two minutes and then throwing energy balls into a stationary target while small groups of enemies occasionally come to shoot at you, who are barely a threat whether you acknowledge them (since your weapon kills everything in one hit) or not (since a side-effect of your weapon's supercharge also doubles your armor, so they can barely hurt you at this point) - and the game ends on a blatant cliffhanger. Still, the [[EleventhHourSuperpower supercharged Gravity Gun]] is a hell of a lot of fun, which may be why people were more lenient on this ending's faults.

* Many players complain about the final level of ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorAirborne'', which is an entirely fictional campaign (an assault on a Flak Tower, which was never actually attempted by the Western Allies) that introduces extremely unrealistic enemies (GasMaskMooks with rocket launchers, and ridiculously unrealistic {{Super Soldier}}s who wield heavy machine guns and can survive a couple dozen bullet hits before dying) in a series which otherwise tries to be at least reasonably historically accurate (the worst inaccuracies were crediting American forces for having a hand in battles they were not involved in, but at least actually happened in reality).

* In the last twenty minutes of ''[[VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]'' you go from being a time-slowing badass fighting really clever AI soldiers, to being in ''Film/TheGrudge'' and fighting waves of copy and paste "ghosts" whose AI is "See the PC; run directly at PC" and which all die in a single shot while all the guns available to you [[BagOfSpilling randomly turn into a single pistol]] for no reason, making the end section quite tedious despite its short length.

* Xen from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}}, with annoying jumping puzzles, extremely unbalanced gameplay and extremely unbalanced gameplay ''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs during]]'' [[PlatformHell annoying jumping puzzles]]. Which is unfortunate, as the Xen levels have the best art style in the entire game, enhance the sense of solitude for the climactic final battle that's fast approaching, give a nice look at the alien home world (for too long, however), and if the lack of playtesting had not made it repetitive and boring, it could have been a ''very'' satisfying conclusion. Notably, the FanRemake ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'' didn't release with the Xen chapters as the devs wanted to do all they can to make that part of the game less tedious... and as a perfect encapsulation of just how monumental a task that must be, the first teaser only came out [[ScheduleSlip more than six years later]].
** And when the Xen levels came out into public beta, it averted the trope ''with a vengeance''.
* Weirdly enough, ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' seems to have avoided some of the hate, although it has similar problems. A forced change in weapons makes everything learned in the first 90% of the game somewhat pointless, the environment is very repetitive, and the player is forced not once, but twice, to make the same ''[[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption stupid decision]]'' to deliver yourself into captivity. The final "boss" encounter isn't up to much either, and the game ends on a blatant cliffhanger. But man, the supercharged Gravity Gun makes up for a lot of sins...

** The finale of The Sacrifice comes off as disappointing and underwhelming to many people because of the level design. Storywise, the map makes sense since it's where the survivors are last seen and are seen again in the same area in The Passing in ''Left 4 Dead 2''. Gameplaywise, you have to start up 3 generators to get the bridge to work and every generator summons a horde of zombies and a Tank, so you spend the the final level just fighting for an extended period of time. The actual sacrifice itself is also underwhelming because, due to limits on the Source engine, the character who sacrifices themselves is shown to be knocked down by a rock thrown from an off-screen Tank and lies there helplessly as the zombies rush in to pounce on them. Assuming they actually make it - since the finale requires exactly ''one'' character to leave safety, run out into the open and then hit the generator, it is all too easy for the entire finale to be lost simply because a Tank spawned close enough to block that player's path to the generator.
* Many players complain about the final level of ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorAirborne'', which is an entirely fictional campaign (an assault on a Flak Tower, which was never actually attempted by the Allies) that introduces extremely unrealistic enemies (GasMaskMooks with rocket launchers, and ridiculously unrealistic {{Super Soldier}}s who wield heavy machineguns and can survive a couple dozen bullet hits before dying) in a series which otherwise tries to be at least reasonably historically accurate (the worst inaccuracies were crediting American forces for having a hand in battles they were not involved in, but at least actually happened in reality).

* While ''Franchise/{{Rambo}}: The Video Game'' is a pretty poor game in general, you ''might'' be able to have some mindless fun by breezing through most of the campaign, which shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. And then you come to the final mission, based on the climax of ''Film/RamboIII'', which suffers from extreme amounts of FakeDifficulty, including dozens upon dozens of enemy units, nearly always accompanied by "commander" enemies who double the damage output of their fellow units and allow them to easily slaughter Rambo if he comes out of cover for just a couple of seconds too long (with their endlessly repeating the phrase "[[MostAnnoyingSound Fight harder, comrades! He's a man, not a god!]]" grating all the while), together with heavy artillery that can easily inflict a OneHitKill on Rambo, and CheckPointStarvation.

* Weirdly enough, ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' seems to have avoided some of the hate, although being much, much worse than the first one. A forced change in weapons makes everything learned in the first 90% of the game somewhat pointless, the environment is very repetitive, and the player is forced not once, but twice, to make the same ''[[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption stupid decision]]'' to deliver yourself into captivity. The final "boss" encounter isn't up to much either, and the game ends on a blatant cliffhanger.

* Xen from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}}, with annoying jumping puzzles, extremely unbalanced gameplay and extremely unbalanced gameplay ''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs during]]'' [[PlatformHell annoying jumping puzzles]]. Which is unfortunate, as the Xen levels have the best art style in the entire game, enhance the sense of solitude for the climactic final battle that's fast approaching, give a nice look at the alien home world (for too long, however), and if the lack of playtesting had not made it repetitive and boring, it could have been a ''very'' satisfying conclusion. Notably, the FanRemake ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'' didn't release with the Xen chapters as the devs wanted to do all they can to make that part of the game less tedious... and as a perfect encapsulation of just how monumental a task that must be, we're ''still'' waiting for it [[ScheduleSlip more than five years later]].

** In the first ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare Modern Warfare]]'', the end boss "fight" comes right in the middle of a huge battle with no forewarning. Also, literally half the Middle Eastern campaign (i.e. everything after the nuke goes off) was cut from the game, which presumably would've balanced out the rushed feeling of the end of the SAS campaign.
** In ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'', the last level feels like a complete retread of "Crew Expendable", one of the intro levels from the first Modern Warfare, before turning into a borderline sci-fi level that would feel right at home in ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyII Black Ops 2]]''. Prominent plot threads, such as rounding up the sleeper agents carrying Nova gas bombs, are wrapped up entirely off-screen, as well, and {{sequel hook}}s hidden in the intel are completely ignored.
** ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare3 Modern Warfare 3]]'', given that half the staff left partway through production, suffers badly from this. After several stunning and memorable levels, Act III extensively reuses assets from previous levels and games. And the ''entire plotline'' about the war between Russia and the United States and the rogue Russian military is wrapped up in a single cutscene. Luckily, the ''actual'' last level (which is more of an epilogue, really) is pretty cathartic.

** The original game ends with you facing a Spider Mastermind as the FinalBoss... whose wide size makes her an easy target to hit, she has a chaingun that is easy to interrupt and less effective the further you're away from, and she has lesser HP than the missile firing Cyberdemon, making her rather underwhelming in contrast to the latter, especially if you use the {{BFG}}, which due to its mechanics allows one to OneHitKill her. Fortunately, the fourth episode added in ''The Ultimate Doom'' makes her much more dangerous with the addition of more enemies and a much more tigthly-cramped arena to let her do some serious damage. [[spoiler:And then in ''VideoGame/Doom2016'', she TookALevelInBadass.]]

* ''VideoGame/FarCry'' throws any semblance of balance out the window in its final two levels. After a series of expansive, yet challenging levels, slowly working you up through larger groups of tougher enemies per encounter, the game designers hit you with the "Volcano" stage, which can only be described as this: One man. Limited weapons and ammunition. Trying not to fall in pools of lava. Every type of enemy (human/non-human). And, despite how often the player was capable of pitting different enemy types against one another in every other level, here ''they're all trying to kill '''you''' specifically''. The game throws the unique cover system right out the window, and forces you to run, run and run some more through a gauntlet of enemies and natural hazards. After putting up with that (and running through a literal killscreen that is all but impossible to see in advance), you may think the worst of it is over once you defeat the "final boss". Not so. The designers decided to throw a dozen of the strongest enemies in the game (that is, armor-plated brutes and acrobatic hybrids who can jump to any level at any time - all with rocket launchers) in a small, bland and circular arena that will kill you almost as soon as you walk through the door. And then one of the villains has the '''gall''' to tell you that you're cheating when you decide to spam his control center (where even MORE enemies are waiting) with rocket ammo. The only way to survive this intact is with an exploit that props a door open for you to get back to an armory. And that's not even mentioning the ending that lasts less than a minute...

** In the first ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', the end boss "fight" comes right in the middle of a huge battle with no forewarning. Also, literally half the Middle Eastern campaign (i.e. everything after the nuke goes off) was cut from the game, which presumably would've balanced out the rushed feeling of the end of the SAS campaign.
** In ''Black Ops'', the last level feels like a complete retread of "Crew Expendable", one of the intro levels from the first Modern Warfare, before turning into a borderline sci-fi level that would feel right at home in ''Black Ops 2''. Prominent plot threads, such as rounding up the sleeper agents carrying Nova gas bombs, are wrapped up entirely off-screen, as well, and {{sequel hook}}s hidden in the intel are completely ignored.
** ''Modern Warfare 3'', given that half the staff left partway through production, suffers badly from this. After several stunning and memorable levels, Act III extensively reuses assets from previous levels and games. And the ''entire plotline'' about the war between Russia and the United States and the rogue Russian military is wrapped up in a single cutscene. Luckily, the ''actual'' last level (which is more of an epilogue, really) is pretty cathartic.

* In ''VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2'', after a climactic boss fight with a humongous mecha piloted by Zilla himself, Zilla survives the battle but for some poorly explained reason both you and Zilla agree to stop the real Big Bad from trying to unseal the demonic gate. After getting the [[EleventhHourSuperpower penultimate]] sword from him, you rush to the final quest in which you just need to fight Ameonna, residing on Kamiko's demonic corrupted body, in a fight that much is much easier than the first boss fight against said demonic corrupted body (let alone the preceding penultimate boss fight) due to your upgraded arsenal and powers and generally less movement from the final boss itself. This is followed by an abrupt GainaxEnding that barely explains anything.

** The original game ends with you facing a Spider Mastermind as the FinalBoss... whose wide size makes her an easy target to hit, she has a chaingun that is easy to interrupt and less effective the further you're away from, and she has lesser HP than the missile firing Cyberdemon, making her rather underwhelming in contrast to the latter, especially if you use the {{BFG}}. [[spoiler: Good thing the Spider Mastermind in ''VideoGame/Doom2016'' TookALevelInBadass.]]

* ''VideoGame/FarCry'' throws any semblance of balance out the window in its final two levels. After a series of expansive, yet challenging levels, the game designers hit you with the "Volcano" stage, which can only be described as this: One man. Limited weapons and ammunition. Trying not to fall in pools of lava. Every type of enemy (human/non-human). ''And they're all trying to kill you, regardless of how much they hate each other''. The game throws the unique cover system right out the window, and forces you to run, run and run some more through a gauntlet of enemies and natural hazards. After putting up with that (and running through a literal killscreen that is all but impossible to see in advance), you may think the worst of it is over once you defeat the "final boss". Not so. The designers decided to throw a dozen of the strongest enemies in the game (that is, armor-plated brutes and acrobatic hybrids who can jump to any level at any time - all with rocket launchers) in a small, bland and circular arena that will kill you almost as soon as you walk through the door. And then one of the villains has the '''gall''' to tell you that you're cheating when you decide to spam his control center (where even MORE enemies are waiting) with rocket ammo. The only way to survive this intact is with an exploit that props a door open for you to get back to an armory. And that's not even mentioning the ending that lasts less than a minute...

* Xen from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}}, with annoying jumping puzzles, extremely unbalanced gameplay and extremely unbalanced gameplay ''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs during]]'' [[PlatformHell annoying jumping puzzles]]. Which is unfortunate, as the Xen levels have the best art style in the entire game, enhance the sense of solitude for the climactic final battle that's fast approaching, give a nice look at the alien home world (for too long, however), and if the lack of playtesting had not made it repetitive and boring, it could have been a ''very'' satisfying conclusion.

* Xen from ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', the [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes former]] {{Trope Namer|s}}, with annoying jumping puzzles, extremely unbalanced gameplay and extremely unbalanced gameplay ''[[BreadEggsBreadedEggs during]]'' [[PlatformHell annoying jumping puzzles]]. Which is unfortunate, as the Xen levels have the best art style in the entire game, enhance the sense of solitude for the climactic final battle that's fast approaching, give a nice look at the alien home world (for too long, however), and if the lack of playtesting had not made it repetitive and boring, it could have been a ''very'' satisfying conclusion. However, remember that this is a subjective trope; it's not uncommon for players to report enjoying the Xen section.
** Perhaps as a measure of just how hard Xen is to actually get right, ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'' is basically missing its ending at the moment because their reworking of Xen is [[DevelopmentHell taking them FOREVER to make in a satisfying manner]].

* Weirdly enough, ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' seems to have avoided some of the hate, although being much, must worse than the first one. A forced change in weapons makes everything learned in the first 90% of the game somewhat pointless, the environment is very repetitive, and the player is forced not once, but twice, to make the same ''[[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption stupid decision]]'' to deliver yourself into captivity.

** Over-the-top BackTracking rears its ugly head in ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved''. The other games have their fair share of BackTracking; this one however has the entire third act as most of the first half of the game in reverse! Oh, and this comes right off of [[ThatOneLevel "The Library"]].
** ''VideoGame/Halo2'' has an exciting beginning involving the invasion of Earth, prompting Master Chief to hijack a city-destroying Scarab to stop the invaders, and using his own body to steer the enemy's bomb back to their own ship in space. After this very fun opening, the game gradually loses momentum, especially after the first boss fight. Most of the game's playing time is spent in unskippable defense points, where the player must wait and pick off invading troops for several minutes at a time. What makes matters so much worse is that the New Mombasa levels are very weak remnants of the amazing E3 2003 demo. Some dialog from it remains, in a very weak narrative and pace compared to how the levels were ultimately supposed to be. Other levels lose pace due to aforementioned unskippable defense points.

** The last level of the first game. You find yourself deep underground in a military base surrounded by combat robots, human enemies, and magical monster generators that won't stop pumping out monsters until you close the vault doors in front of them. All of the more interesting gameplay goes out the window as there are no people to interact with through any means besides combat. There are no interesting secrets to find or interesting atmosphere to enjoy. Just your standard metal-corridors-until-you-reach-the-ending. Although, the entire section in Paris is as much of a soul-sucker as the last level (outside the [[Awesome/VideoGameLevels mansion level]]). It's simply not as well designed or in-depth as any of the other city areas. A large part of this was caused by a lot of the more intricate development and extra touches (including an additional level - ''the Moon'' - JC would travel to after completing Area 51) being scrapped during development, and the level feeling very empty as a result. Additionally, two of the three endings require the player to backtrack through a now-devoid-of-enemies zone to get to the required location(s), and are generally much less satisfying (and shorter) than the "Kill Bob Page" finale.