History Main / ItsShortSoItSucks

** One concern that many players had with ''Monster Hunter Generations'' during the first year since its release was the lack of G-rank -- the tier of quests that comes after High Rank and is only added in {{Updated Rerelease}}s of "vanilla" ''Monster Hunter'' games -- [[AmericansHateTingle particularly in the West]] which hasn't had a ''Monster Hunter'' game without G-rank since ''Monster Hunter tri-'' in 2010 (this is because the games without G-rank that were released during that period, ''Portabe 3rd'' and the original ''Monster Hunter 4'', [[NoExportForYou remained exclusive to Japan and Korea]]). Something of note is that a ''Monster Hunter'' file that reaches the end of High Rank usually has about ''100-150 hours'' logged, with G-rank adding another hundred or so hours; the concern wasn't that "100 hours is too short for a game" so much as "we're so used to three tiers of quest difficulty that it feels weird having only two". The overseas LateExportForYou of ''[[UpdatedRerelease Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate]]'', which does have G-rank, had aggravated this particular sore spot for much longer than necessary.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' had this for two seasons in a row. Season 17, ''Singularity'', while well-liked got criticism for being the shortest season yet, with only 12 episodes, most of whom weren't longer than usual. Season 18, ''Zero'', was even shorter with 8, while trying to introduce a whole new cast and still dedicate most of the running time to [[ActionizedSequel flashy action scenes]] alongside the plot, and as a result, the pacing is very off, some moments feeling too slow and others moving a mile a minute, with none of the characters getting the time to properly explore their characterization.

Fast-forward to the 1990s and 2000s, where more arcade-style genres began to take a backseat in popularity to [[AdventureGame adventure]] and [[RolePlayingGame role-playing games]]. Now games were expected to last dozens of hours, with hour-long games quickly becoming regarded as short, budget titles to be avoided at all costs. The mentality developed that a game's length must be directly proportional to its price, and it's a mindset that has only gotten stronger as we enter the present day. In other words, ''[[TitleDrop it's short, so it sucks]]'': it doesn't matter what genre the game being targeted is: {{first person shooter}}s, [[ShootEmUp shoot 'em ups]], [=RPGs=], {{action adventure}}, you name it. If you can beat the game in a day or two, or worse, in one sitting, expect review sites to, at best, [[EightPointEight cut off a whole point or letter grade]].

Secondly, as gamers grow older and chose to continue the hobby, they find that adulthood has more time-consuming responsibilities and complications than childhood: college/university, work, family life, and paying for your own necessities of food, water and shelter leaves you with less time to play games, to say nothing of leaving you with [[CrackIsCheaper less money to buy them]]. As such, there are a good amount of people who [[SugarWiki/SoShortItRocks actually prefer a shorter game]] that can be beaten in a few days, or even hours, so they can get on with more urgent aspects of their lives, or at least move on to the next game (or the NewGamePlus, or whatever post-game content is available in the present one).

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** Both ''VideoGame/SonicColors'' and ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' are noted for their shortness, even though both (plus ''[[VideoGame/SonicUnleashed Unleashed]]'') are considered to be the games that saved the franchise from its DorkAge. The shortness is justified, though, considering that ''Unleashed'' was criticized for the exact opposite problem – having the Werehog gameplay take up the majority of the game; and considering how much development effort is put into developing a single 3-4 minute stage in the Modern Sonic games, it's better to be short in the end.

* Quite a few players are put off by how the ''[[TabletopGame/ExitTheGame Exit: The Game]]'' games cost $15 each even though they can only be played once, which takes a few hours at most. Worse, playing it involves defacing components, so you can't even resell or give away your used copy.

* In WWE this was the fate of most women's matches from roughly 2009-2014. Due to WWE's belief in the GirlShowGhetto, matches were rarely given much time. It was considered a good day if a ten-minute slot was given (compare this to the fifteen and sometimes twenty-minute time frames others would get). Finally averted as of 2015 and WWE attempting to take women's wrestling seriously.
** It once got so bad that there were 10-women tag matches that would last a grand total of a minute of actual in-ring time.

* thatgamecompany's titles have been met with this at least once, but of particular note comes ''VideoGame/{{Journey}}''. It takes around 80 minutes to beat the game, and about 2-3 hours for a player to earn all 14 trophies. In comparison, around one hour is how much time is needed to beat ''VideoGame/{{Flower}}'', which [[WordOfGod Jenova Chen]] said was a "interactive poem".

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'' and ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'' both seem to get this a lot. The strict time limit on the first game even enforced this, limiting the amount of exploring the player can do in favor of just getting all the parts as quickly as possible.

* Short albums are the norm in {{Grindcore}}. For example, Gridlink's first two albums are both less than thirteen minutes long, and their third and final album is less than twenty-two (though the CD version was bundled with instrumental "karaoke" mixes of the tracks which doubled the length of the album). Assück's two albums are both around fifteen minutes long (though ''Anticapital'' was bundled with some bonus material on CD that brought the album length up by around nine minutes). And so on. This is the Joey Ramone quote above taken UpToEleven. This is one of the reasons that grindcore is a polarizing genre. Most grindcore albums are longer than Gridlink's and Assück's, but it's still uncommon for grindcore albums to exceed thirty minutes in length, though this may simply be because many listeners would find grindcore albums that long to be exhausting.

** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins: The Darkspawn Chronicles'', is easily completed in a couple of hours. It has no dialogue, no NPC interaction beyond recruiting and [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness executing unwanted thralls]], and no real customization. For being so different from previous Dragon Age offerings, critics are giving it negative reviews.

** ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar'', a game that [[GameplayRoulette comprises many shorter games]], often falls prey to this.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'': gets this criticism quite a bit. Partially because, unless you listen to the completely optional Codec conversations, you never really get to know either Raiden or his team all that well. However, another criticism of the game is that it feels ''deceptively'' short. See, the game consists of a prologue mission, and then seven actual missions. The prologue is about 30 minutes long, and the first four actual missions are fairly lengthy, taking about 60-90 minutes to complete, and featured multiple boss fights along the way. Then mission 5 is a short walk down a linear street with only a few mobs of {{Mooks} to fight. Mission 6 is just a boss fight and nothing else, and Mission 7 is a short trip through an Air Force base capped off by the FinalBoss. Ultimately, some fans were unhappy when it turned out thew the first four (of seven) missions contained about 90 percent of the actual game.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyMysticQuest'', in addition to also being [[ItsEasySoItSucks "easy, so it sucks".]]

* While there's some acclaimed short story authors, such as Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, Creator/AntonChekhov, Creator/JorgeLuisBorges and, more recently, Noble Prize winner Alice Munro, the format in general is often regard as "inferior" in literary circles and is much harder to be picked by publishers due to the public in general prefering novels to short story collections.

* It's not uncommon for CountryMusic albums to feature only ten songs with an average length of three minutes or less, especially during the vinyl era when it was more or less the norm.

* ''Anime/PuniPuniPoemy'' at only two episodes.

* ''Manga/IMarriedMyBestFriendToShutMyParentsUp'' is a YuriGenre manga by Naoko Kodama that is only three chapters long and, along with an unrelated one-shot, comprises a single volume. Many people who read it were unpleasantly surprised to find out that the third chapter is the last. [[NoEnding The fact that it ends abruptly, with little having changed between the two leads, doesn't help]].

* ''Film/TheGoldenCompass'' was attacked for how short it was, resulting in a very rushed pacing that hurt the story. The original director claims that a whole hour of footage was cut due to ExecutiveMeddling.

* This was one of many criticisms of ''Film/TheLastAirbender''. They somehow took 20 episodes and edited down to only 103 minutes (for rather vague reasons), meaning that whole scenes had to be either dropped, replaced with narration, or combined in ways that just made it a mess. And that's not even including the scenes that were added that ruined what the series set up.

* ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' often gets the complaint that a herd of supporting characters with strong personalities and screen presence are left battling for limited screentime (and all end up being shortchanged), and more time could have been devoted to exploring the setting as well.
* ''Film/JusticeLeague2017'' was criticized for being too short at 120 minutes for an ensemble film. After the divisive audience reception to ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'', Warner Bros. executives mandated that the film should last no more than 2 hours, allegedly to allow for more screenings per day and address the complaints that ''Batman v Superman'' was too long. The problem is that while a shorter run time would be appropriate for solo movies, this ended up hurting an ensemble film like ''Justice League'' since there is less time devoted to developing each hero. A lot of footage was cut from Creator/ZackSnyder's originally intended version and eventually made it to the [[Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague Director's Cut]], which is a whopping four hours long.

* The first-ever ''Franchise/JamesBond'' adaptation, ''Film/CasinoRoyale1954'' from ''Climax!'', is a whopping 54-minutes long. This is fairly forgivable as it was produced solely as a low-budget CBS 'movie of the week', performed live, and [[PragmaticAdaptation happens to be a damn good adaptation of the source novel]], despite the Americanization of James Bond.

* Music/{{Weezer}}'s second SelfTitledAlbum (a.k.a. ''The Green Album'') occasionally got this complaint by fans, since it's only 28 minutes long. That's only 4 minutes shorter than ''Music/{{Pinkerton}}'' was, but some were still disappointed that the band's first album in five years was under a half-hour long.
* Likewise, Music/TheyMightBeGiants' album ''The Spine'' was criticized for being less than a half-hour long. On the other hand, TMBG recorded so many songs during these sessions (the leftovers being released on two EP's, plus two spare songs released online) that fans have made their own jam-packed extended versions of the album.
** TMBG's ''Factory Showroom'' was criticized not for total length but because it only had 13 songs, compared to their usual album lineup of 18-20 songs. This was due to the songs being a bit longer than usual.
* Subverted with Music/TheRamones' debut album, ''Music/{{Ramones}}'', which is a little over 29 minutes long. One reason why it's so popular with fans and critics was that the songs ''were'' [[ThreeChordsAndTheTruth short and to the point]], while at the same time packing a punch, making what little time the music was playing worth it.
-->'''Joey Ramone:''' They're not short songs, they're long songs played fast.

* Music/NickDrake's final album, ''Pink Moon'', was criticized at the time of its release for being only 28 minutes long. His producer has said that, given its bleakness, it really did not need to be any longer.
* It's not uncommon for CountryMusic albums to feature only ten songs with an average length of three minutes or less, especially during the vinyl era when it was more or less the norm.

* Music/{{Wintersun}}'s ''Time I'' received a lot of complaints about its short length, despite the fact that it is explicitly labelled as being only half of an album.
* Music/FryderykChopin's Op. 28, ''Preludes'', consists of 24 short pieces for solo piano, the vast majority of which could be played in under 2 minutes. His contemporary Music/RobertSchumann called them "sketches, beginnings of études, or, so to speak, ruins, individual eagle pinions, all disorder and wild confusions."

* The song "Parachutes" off of {{Music/Coldplay}}'s [[NonAppearingTitle debut album of the same name]] gets this reaction from some fans, considering it's only about 45 seconds long.
* Back in the vinyl era, ''Village Voice'' critic Robert Christgau opined that albums needed to be at least 30 minutes to give a listener their money's worth of music. Even when he liked the album, he would still note the exact running time of a short album in a review.
* Music/KeithUrban's ''Get Closer'' album received some complaints of this nature for only having eight songs on it.
* Music/GreenDay's 2020 album ''Father of All...'' got flack from critics and fans due to its 26-minute runtime since most of their studio albums have a runtime of over 30 minutes with the shortest prior to this being their 31-minute debut album ''39/Smooth'' (barring the album's expanded 56-minute version ''1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours'', which combines the album with their first two [=EP=]s ''Slappy'' and ''1,000 Hours'') and the longest being their 69-minute album ''Music/TwentyFirstCenturyBreakdown''.
* Music/KanyeWest went through a distinct phase of around 2018-2020 (mostly surrounded by a hectic CreatorBreakdown and [[AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder wildly divided creative attention]]) where he produced several albums for himself and others, but never broke 30 minutes long. While the broad critical reception towards each project varied significantly -- ''Music/KidsSeeGhosts'' (24 minutes) and Pusha T's ''Daytona'' (21 minutes) were acclaimed, but ''ye'' (24 minutes) and ''Jesus Is King'' (27 minutes) were heavily divisive -- just about everyone noticed their short length, which didn't help for those with more negative opinions. It took until 2021's ''Donda'' for him to reach a hearty album length again (109 minutes), though that album was controversial for other reasons.

* ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'': One massive criticism was it having exactly four areas in the game and being over in about a day's worth of gameplay. This criticism was addressed for the sequels.

* ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'' is very short, roughly 7 hours but only if it's your second (and so on) playthrough. Because in your first one you probably didn't know how to kill the Colossus, so one battle could easily spanned for 1-2 hours. It is after all, also a puzzle game.
* ''VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend''. Even the developers themselves later said that the game was too short and subsequent games would be longer. ''Anniversary'' was indeed much longer (though still half the length of the game it was remaking). However, ''Underworld'' wasn't much longer than ''Legend'' and got the same complaints.

* ''VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil'' also seemed to mostly avert this, getting very good reviews despite its length. It was a commercial disaster, however, which may have been partly a result of this.

* ''VideoGame/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows: Part 2'' can be finished in just a couple of hours... which means you could watch [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows the movie it's based on]] in the same timeframe and [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames have a more enjoyable experience]].

* ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'', the video game, got this complaint (among others; it's a video game of a movie). On the one hand, it's unadulterated Wolverine, brutally slashing people to death and ripping them apart and stabbing them with scenery and yay! On the other, it's repetitive and can be finished in 7 hours and boo.

%%Explain this. * ''VideoGame/TheNeverhood''
* Due to being the first episodic game in the series, some VideoGame/MonkeyIsland fans felt that ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'' was too short… even though if you play each chapter back-to-back, it's probably the ''longest'' game in the series.

* A common criticism of ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'' was how short it was. The game can easily be finished in less than 10 hours. The sequel gets it even worse, as it's even shorter.

* ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'' received criticism for its story being only 6 to seven hours. Migitated somehow by the episodic formula it has, as well as some future DLC that adds in a few chapters amongst other new stuff.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsRepublicCommando'' really, really suffered from this. However, some have argued it's a bit of an inversion – it's so good they wish it were longer.

* ''VideoGame/TheConduit'' has accused of not being worth $50 due to only having a few hours worth of single player as the developers admitted, no split-screen multiplayer, and being stuck with the Wii's overprotective online multiplayer matchmaking.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'':
** ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' has been criticized for this, as the single-player only lasts for about six hours. Infinity Ward has actually responded to this criticism, saying that the story largely came first and they designed the game around it without for the effect this would have on the length, because they specifically wanted to avoid artificially padding it out. ''Modern Warfare 2'' has a similar length for the same reasons, but a new co-op gametype is being introduced, with scenarios based on ideas suggested for the single-player campaign that were ultimately left out because there wasn't any good place or good reasons to put them in.
** ''[[GaidenGame Declassified]]'', the UsefulNotes/PlaystationVita tie-in between the first ''Black Ops'' and the second, can have its entire campaign completed in ''under an hour'' if you can handle the [[DifficultySpike random spikes in difficulty]].
** It's pretty clear that ''Modern Warfare 2'' [[FollowTheLeader started a trend]]. Every ''Call of Duty'' game released after 2009 has had a pretty short campaign ranging from 4 to 6 hours, and so has many other military-style FPS games since. The ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' reboot and the later ''Battlefield'' games come to mind. Presumably the developers have realized that the real meat of the game lies in multiplayer so it just isn't worth it to have a long campaign anymore.
* The Australian gaming show ''Series/GoodGame'' gave ''[[Franchise/{{Halo}} Halo 3: ODST]]'' an average review due to the reviewers claiming to have beaten the game in co-op on legendary in 4 1/2 hours.

* ''VideoGame/{{Homefront}}'' has a tiny 3-4 hour single-player campaign, which means that you're basically buying it for the multiplayer, and at the time that was already being done bigger and better in ''Bad Company 2''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 4}}'' got slammed for this, with a campaign that is merely 7 missions long and plagued with bugs. Most Youtube playthroughs of the campaign can barely crack 3 or 4 hours.

* Many players felt that the 2021 remake of the ''WesternAnimation/PinchcliffeGrandPrix'' LicensedGame cut so many of the original's mini-games that the game turned out too short to be worth the asking price of ~$45. This complaint overlaps with TheyChangedItNowItSucks, as many of these fans were also disappointed that a ~$45 game was missing a lot of the original's content.

* ''VideoGame/WarioWorld'' and ''VideoGame/WarioLandShakeIt'' (a.k.a. ''The Shake Dimension''), both of which missed out of getting better than good reviews from some professional video game critics (they thought the games ended too quickly).
* ''VideoGame/WarioWare''. More so with ''Snapped'', and likely the ''D.I.Y.'' games, because those games have way fewer characters than there were in previous games[[note]]Though if you combine both the DS D.I.Y. and Showcase, there are really only 4 characters missing[[/note]], and in the former, only around 20 microgames.
* Various UsefulNotes/WiiWare games get criticised for this, such as both ''VideoGame/{{Lostwinds}}'' and a game about the Wild West as examples of a lack in content getting lowered scores. ''Wii Music'' has been gouged in reviews for not having a clear goal, and is thus "only" a two-hour jam session.

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'' is one of the few game series whose games escape this kind of reaction by using their short playtime to encourage multiple playthroughs, with much of the bonus content requiring [[SpeedRun speed runs]] of less than 2 or 3 hours. In the case of the ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' and ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', their respective lengths are longer on average anyway (15-20 hours for most players).

* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' did get this from a few reviews.
* ''VideoGame/ChameleonTwist 1'' and 2 suffer from this, both only having about 6 levels each. If you knew where all of the crowns/coins and carrots were, you could easily complete the game 100% in only 1-2 hours.
* ''VideoGame/TheLittleMermaid'' has only five not-very-long stages, disappointing reviewers.
* ''VideoGame/TheAngryVideoGameNerdAdventures'' is much shorter than you'd expect for a game that initially cost $15. While its NintendoHard difficulty makes the game take longer, players who know what they're doing can beat the game in as little as a couple hours.
* The most frequent complaint against ''VideoGame/TinyAndBig'' is its length, being six levels long (excluding the tutorial) and clocking in at roughly three hours on average if played straight through.
* This is one of the complaints critics have about ''VideoGame/{{Astal}}''. The critics have stated that, while ''Astal'' is a very colorful and creative game, it is a bit too short.
* Averted with ''VideoGame/{{Strider}}'', which received stellar reviews (including [[Magazine/ElectronicGamingMonthly EGM]]'s "game of the year" for the Genesis port), even though it can be beaten in less than 20 minutes.

* The Xbox Live Arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Limbo}}'' has already gained this reputation for some, thanks to its 4-hour game length, its $15 price tag at launch (though this has since been reduced to $10) and most importantly, its almost complete lack of replay value. While gamers who felt cheated after completing the game didn't hate it, they thought it was fun but forgettable.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'' and ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'' both seem to get this a lot. The strict time limit on the first game even enforced this, limiting the amount of exploring the player can do in favor of just getting all the parts as quickly as possible.
%%* ''VideoGame/{{Ninjatown}}'' caught some flack for this, although it was intended as a budget game.

* ''VideoGame/RhapsodyAMusicalAdventure'' got a lot of criticism on its release for being an RPG that lasts all of ten hours if you really, really dawdle. It was also [[ItsEasySoItSucks brainlessly easy]] even on its highest difficulty setting. Still, it has its supporters simply because it's downright weird and practically unique (outside of Japan, anyway).

* One of the criticisms leveled at ''Tales of the Tempest'', also called "Tales of Ten Hours", though not the only one.
* In a mixture of SeinfeldIsUnfunny and this, ''VideoGame/StarOcean1'' can be seen as this. The game has about ≤12 hours worth of unskippable material - for a JRPG? That's actually a rather short game for genres where games are often 20-50 hours, with some games like VideoGame/TalesOfGraces advertising 60-80 hours, and reports of people even putting as much as ''300 hours'' into games like ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'', ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'', or ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance''. No ''wonder'' it had this criticism - even when the game was new and was a huge experiment for the SNES (however, it still was hampered by the fact that it is an ObviousBeta - it has a ''huge'' amount of DummiedOut content).
* ''Franchise/DragonAge'':
** The first game got a few complaints from people who just did the bare minimum required to reach the ending, ignoring the fact that the numerous optional missions make it a very long game indeed. The sequel worked around this by making it less obvious which missions could be skipped, 'tricking' such unpleasable people into actually experiencing more of the content they paid for.
** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins: The Darkspawn Chronicles'', is easily completed in a couple of hours. It has no dialogue, no NPC interaction beyond recruiting and [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness executing unwanted thralls]], and no real customization. For being so different from previous Dragon Age offerings, critics are giving it negative reviews.
** [=DA2=] also gave very clear hints where the story would reach a point of no return, and optional quests would [[PermanentlyMissableContent no longer be an option]]. If a player didn't feel it was worthwhile to gather every advantage available, the DiscOneFinalBoss [[ThatOneBoss would make them regret it]], and their game would be [[RageQuit very short indeed]].
** The expansion pack ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening Awakening]]'' can be comfortably beaten in about 13 hours, which fans found disappointing considering that Bioware found it worthy of selling on its own disc rather than making it a DLC.
* ''VideoGame/XMenDestiny'' is an RPG that can be beaten in about five hours. As expected, it gets a lot of criticism for it.

* The original ''VideoGame/{{Suikoden}}'' is an unusual case: not only is it famous for being one of the shortest [=JRPGs=] of all time (at least, amongst the commonly known ones), but it's actually become a ''selling'' point for it. Then again, the [[OneHundredPercentCompletion means]] to obtain the GoldenEnding are another story...

* ''VideoGame/RogueGalaxy'' can be completely in less than ten hours with [[LowLevelRun lowest possible level]].

* While this trope doesn't apply to ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' itself, it's a common criticism of the first expansion ''Ashes of Ariandel''. It adds only a couple of new areas and two bosses, one of which is optional and only really consists of fighting an NPC player character and a recurring KingMook simultaneously. While the other boss is generally regarded as [[AwesomeBosses/DarkSouls one of]] [[MarathonBoss the best]] in the series, the general consensus is that's not enough to justify the price tag. Since ''Ashes of Ariandel'' is one of the only two expansions ''Dark Souls 3'' is getting it compares poorly to the DLC in the other entries in the series, (''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'' had one expansion with four bosses, ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' had three expansions with three bosses in each one and the SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' had one expansion with five bosses) and as such it also raised concerns from fans about the longevity of the game compared to its predecessors.

* This is a common complaint with ''VideoGame/LiberationMaiden'', as it can easily be beaten under an hour or less. However, given the very cheap price tag, some people overlook the length due to it still being good after quite a few replays.

* ''VideoGame/MarioGolf: Super Rush'' is criticized for having a short story mode that only features a single tournament, as well as its ranked multiplayer mode only taking place over just three holes even though all players go at once instead of taking turns like in conventional multiplayer golf games.

* Some ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' fans have given ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'' flack for this. Not only does it have the shortest single-player campaign in the main series, it also has far fewer sidequests than that of the previous [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII two]] [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood installments.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'' gets some flak for taking around eight hours to complete at a normal pace. Some still consider it worth it due to feeling like a more advance "classical-style" stealth game, however.

* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' is a critically acclaimed {{Deconstruction}} of military shooting war games in general. It's also highly criticized for being short, with playthrough on the normal difficulty only clocking around three and a half hours. Or six hours if one dies often or trying to collect all the collectibles and secrets (including several one-of-a-kind weapons that can't be found elsewhere in the game).

* ''VideoGame/AlienSwarm'' is a freeware game that had only one campaign of 5 maps. While the game itself is fun to play, it would take an average player about an hour to complete all the levels and that's before the grind for experience points to level up and unlock better gear. By the time mods were being made for the game to make more maps, most of the player base had left. It wasn't until several years later where the game received a big update called ''Reactive Drop'' where the game gained several campaigns (some being from mods), new equipment, a PVP mode, and the ability to play with eight players/bots instead of the usual party of four.

* The ''WebVideo/{{Sonic}}'' ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtCtQpclpY8 Fan Film]]'' suffers from this; it was in development for roughly 2 1/2 years, had Jaleel White from ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'', ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'', and ''WesternAnimation/SonicUnderground'' voicing the titular protagonist, yet the film lasts less than half an hour with a plot that goes all over the place.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': ''VideoGame/Pikmin1'' and ''[[VideoGame/Pikmin3 3]]'' both seem to get this a lot. The strict time limit on the first game even enforced this, limiting the amount of exploring the player can do in favor of just getting all the parts as quickly as possible.

[[folder:Real Time Strategy]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} 1'' and ''3'' both seem to get this a lot. The strict time limit on the first game even enforced this, limiting the amount of exploring the player can do in favor of just getting all the parts as quickly as possible.
* ''Ninjatown'' caught some flack for this, although it was intended as a budget game.
* A common criticism of ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'', with some going so far as to say the story missions can be finished in four hours. This is partially due to the drastic change in pacing after the first half and the lack of proportionate attention given to the third (and most threatening) final enemy army. Creator/TimSchafer says the single player is a multiplayer tutorial at the core. But Creator/ElectronicArts [[MisaimedMarketing did not want that getting out.]]