History YMMV / DeadIsland

* TaintedByThePreview: The trailer for both ''DeadIsland'' and ''Riptide'' suggested a level of PlayerPunch and emotional depth that the games do not exactly live up to. They certainly portray a frightening ZombieApocalypse but if someone had played the game without seeing them then the previews look like they are for another game.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Charon]], aka [[spoiler: Kevin]], is nothing but a heartless monster. An international [[PsychoForHire hacker-for-hire]], Charon is wanted for willingly working with every terrorist and criminal organization, from Al-Qaeda to the Yakuza. During the zombie outbreak on Banoi, Charon intends to take a sample of the zombie virus and get rich by selling it as a bio-weapon. He [[ManipulativeBastard manipulates the immune protagonists]] against [[AntiHero Colonel Ryder White]], which gets White killed, and convinces them to obtain a bio-eningeered super-potent strain of the virus. As it turns out, Charon also manipulated Ryder into betraying his country, using his infected wife as leverage, and after betraying Ryder, states that he should have killed him when he had the chance. When Dr. West insists on creating a cure for the virus, Charon kills him. Driven by {{greed}} and his indifference to human life, Charon cares not for the millions he puts in danger in the pursuit of money.

* TheWoobie: Yerema, Jin and [[spoiler: Ryder White]].

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eflgxjK_tXc&feature=player_embedded Here]]'s one(spoiler advisory) for the beginning and ending of ''{{LOST}}''.

* GameBreaker: Believe it or not simply the ability to jump up on a car. Best seen in the Quarantine Zone, doing so as soon as you hear the Infected causes them to not know what to do, then they get mad and rush the car in waves of thirty or more. Since for the most part they cannot reach you they can be easily dealt with via molotov, firearm, or any weapon with decent range.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: Sam B is a very popular choice to play as. In singleplayer, it's all but mandatory to play as him, as his large health pool and damage reduction abilities give him the best survivability on his own. In multiplayer, he also has an aggro ability that lets him function as a tank and take the heat off your teammates.
** If everyone is up to it, you can go through the campaign as [[GameBreaker a four-man team of Sam B's]].
** EarWorm: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo3NXDWBML8 Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch?]]"

* UnfortunateImplications: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Apparently]], one of the programmers had weird opinions. Purna has a mid-range Combat talent in her tree called "Gender Wars" that gives her a flat damage bonus to enemies of the opposite sex, which happens to include [[GameBreaker most of the enemies on the island]]. If you dig down into the game's code, this talent is referred to as "Feminist Whore." Someone found this and promptly posted about it on the Steam forums, prompting a speedy reaction from Deep Silver; they denied any intentional maliciousness on the part of the company and publisher and noted that it was the work of a lone rogue programmer.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: ''Escape Dead Island'''s themes of madness and taking place from the perspective of the [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness progressively breaking]] Cliff is actually a fairly intriguing idea, and the associated mental breaks are rather surreal and impressive looking. Where it fails is the game takes a hurry to get there, and it's obvious almost from the beginning.

* CompleteMonster: [[BigBad Charon]], aka [[spoiler: Kevin]], is nothing but a heartless monster. An international [[PsychoForHire hacker-for-hire]], Charon is wanted for willingly working with every terrorist and criminal organization, from Al-Qaeda to the Yakuza. During the zombie outbreak on Banoi, Charon intends to take a sample of the zombie virus and get rich by selling it as a bio-weapon. He [[ManipulativeBastard manipulates the immune protagonists]] against [[AntiHero Colonel Ryder White]], which gets White killed, and convinces them to obtain a bio-eningeered super-potent strain of the virus. As it turns out, Charon also manipulated Ryder into betraying his country, using his infected wife as leverage, and after betraying Ryder, states that he should have killed him when he had the chance. When Dr. West insists on creating a cure for the virus, Charon kills him. Driven by {{greed}} and his indifference to human life, Kevin cares not for the millions he puts in danger in the pursuit of money.

* HarsherInHindsight: Blowing up a gas canister might result in your character whooping and hollering in joy. Now watch the ''Riptide'' trailer with that in mind.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: The games are really dark in their content with little if any hope and most of the characters start out as or become unlikeable, which may turn some gamers off.

* ThatOneSidequest: The Third Head of Cerberus quest, which forces you to go into the quarantine zone of Moresby to activate some speakerphones. Which means you have to fight through, or attempt to run past, many zombies which respawn rather quickly while inside. And if you're not familiar with the area, it can be quite a pain fending off the large wave of zombies while trying to figure out where the speakerphones are.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: Games such as ''ResidentEvil'' and ''DeadRising'' make the idea of a ZombieApocalypse appealing and fun to play. Dead Island is fun, and well made, however stripping much in the way of humor, a sense of achievement or likeability does curb enthusiasm to actually wanting to be in Banoi during the outbreak.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: The trailer depicting a little girl turning into a zombie, attacking her father as he fights a losing battle against the infected and throws her out a window is so dark and so disturbing it should have turned gamers off. [[AvertedTrope Actually, no.]] Because it was so dark and so disturbing gamers were interested in what type of zombie game this will be, especially in comparison to the comfortable tone of ResidentEvil and the series had turned into CallOfDuty.

** The Indigenous tribes of Banoi are modeled after [[AustralianAboriginie Australian Aboriginies]] and New Guinea, and take the worst aspects of misogyny and hints of voodoo witchcraft. Purna being a permanently pissed off [[AngryBlackMan angry black woman]] and Indigenous does not help.

* MoralEventHorizon: The Police Station Raskols [[spoiler:kidnapping survivors and feeding them to captured Walkers, as well as ''raping'' Jin]]. [[spoiler:Koritoia attempting to murder Yerema, ''his own daughter'', simply because she left the tribe to live in the city]]. [[spoiler:Charon orchestrating the entire outbreak to begin with purely ForTheEvulz.]]

** The Indigenous tribes of Banoi are modeled after AustralianAboriginies and New Guinea, and take the worst aspects of misogyny and hints of voodoo witchcraft.

* NightmareFuel: [[NightmareFuel/DeadIsland Has its own page now]].\