I don't know.

Here's a couple examples, while not that evil, were still found to be rather unfun before release, and were replaced with more fun mechanics:

Civilization 3: Originally, at random points, your civilization would enter a Dark Age, where for 20 turns your science output would slow down (I don't know by how much, because the mechanic didn't survive). Before the release of the game, the developers decided to take them out and replace them with Golden Ages which, unlike Dark Ages, were actually fun.

Shovel Knight: At one point, the idea is that checkpoints would cost money. This meant that novice players, who would have trouble getting the money to pay for checkpoints (and also the ones who most need them), would not be able to use them. This mechanic was replaced with a mechanic where checkpoints were free, but a daring player could break the checkpoint for extra money at the expense of being set back further upon death.

Article about the second example: