Just about any game that has a time / turn limit mission somewhere in the campaign, where if you don't match their formula for success on that mission in the time / turns allowed then you're stuck at that point with no way to get past. Apparently my desire to take my time on a strategy game is "stupid" and I should be punished with not being able to access the rest of the content that was purchased; as it sits now, I have two GOGs where I'm stuck because of this (early in the content), plus a few games from my pre-GOG days.

Frustrating in that you pay for the whole game but don't get a chance to experience later developments in the story / plot / action / units / gameworld / maps / tracks / etc.because you aren't that good at it. Kudos to the games that let you skip missions and try them later, or that offer alternative ways around those points that get you stuck for eternity.

I won A.I. War in a contest and unfortunately feel the same way. I need to sit down with a hard copy of the manual and a good solid afternoon to spare before I can really play it.

Oh how many times have I tried to beat X-com....
It effects me mentally, my last game I even had a viking funeral in the sink for poor kevin, I can only handle sending so many men and women to their deaths....
QQ

The first time I did Dwarf Fortress I stared at it lost for a bit, and it sat unplayed for a little while before it got uninstalled. I tried it again a couple months ago, several years after the first time I played it, and actually managed to learn the ropes and play it.

I have not gone back to revisit X2: The Threat and X3: Reunion. I had that feeling when I tried it way back. Now that I have the set again (Steam xmas sales) I've yet to pick it up, but I probably will at some point..

oh god, Europa Universalis 3 is that bad huh. I have it.. have not tried it beyond testing that it worked and then getting distracted by something else.

Think of AI War as tower defence where you have to keep expanding your lands to defend (ideally at the same time making earlier 'inside' territory 'safe'), and sending suicidal scouts/teams to locate important things! And play the low modes/tutorial to start! The tutorial helped a ton. But yeah it;s a lil on the confusing side for sure.

The X: series by far for me though, of those I've tried.

Uplink.

Good game, but I can't figure out how to raise enough money fast enough, and hide my tracks when doing stuff.

I hate to say it but - Croc on the PS1.... that game ruined my childhood.. i

I know how you feel... I love the idea of RTS games, but I'm usually pretty bad at them. If too much is happening I'll get overwhelmed and start clicking 'randomly' as panic mode sets in. That's why I have to pause every couple of seconds in combat to assess the situation and maybe change tactics. While this strategy generally work well enough in single player games to keep me winning, it usually translates to my butt being kicked in multiplayer, which is why I rarely play RTS games online.

X-COM: UFO Defense was one of the first I thought about, because of playing the demo when it originally came out. I've spoken to lots of people who tried it and gave up, confused, passing up a great game. So did I. Until a good while after it was released, when I tried again. A demo like that needs some better instruction.

The game itself is very difficult. But it gets better even at night if you use smoke grenades and flares. Don't even step onto the exit ramp, much less leave the plane before tossing two smoke grenades to give you overlapping coverage. Usually every one of my soldiers gets a smoke grenade, just in case they are the ones up front.

If you do that, though, you can usually make it out of the plane. But you can't expand in too many directions at once, because you need back-up exploration and cover fire everywhere you go.

It's hard, no doubt. And when you come to the zombies, it'll teach you exactly what unfair's all about. But it's such an incredibly good game that it's well worth puzzling out. The mechanisms are not elaborate; it's just that there are a fair number to think about at once. In return, you get some of the best gaming moments I've ever experienced, including authentically scary ones. Which is damned hard to do in a game, especially of this sort.

Anyway, there's a reason this game is so beloved. Most will eventually be glad if they don't let the initial learning curve throw them off. I've played this game for decades, on and off, having a blast every time. It's one of my "desert island" games for sure.
I feel ya on a lot of that. I buy a game to play the game itself, not to figure out how a level designer wanted me to read his mind so I can figure out the "trick" to a particular level. And being locked out of further content can make a certain amount of sense, but only if the way through that bottleneck doesn't require mind-reading, but lets you instead just exercise the gameplay skills you've picked up in previous levels.
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Re games that I'm stuck on and gave up for now: Jagged Alliance 2. The start-up process of choosing your soldiers and getting your operation going is elaborate and convoluted for a beginner, though it might seem instinctual and obvious once you've played the game for a while. But for me, it's really damn forbidding. It's hard to imagine going back and trying again.
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From way in the past? Apache Longbow. Another flying game here or there, like Falcon, but none so much, perhaps, because there was none I wanted to play so much. Flying a chopper is brutally hard as it is even with the realism turned down. And the ground was so splotchy and repetitive in those terrible-graphic days that it was easy to not know how high you were or where you were going, if you lost concentration for a bit.

Smoke and flares eh? Played the game to death and never realized people used those. I usually just won't land if it's night time and wait for the darkness to pass (unless it's a terror site, then you have to be there ASAP).

If you're struggling in the early game you might want to buy a tank to flesh out the aliens near your landing zone - they can take a lot more punishment and are pretty powerful.

Realms of Arkania I. I tried that some hours or so. Wanted to get familiar with the controls and the many possibilities that seemed to be there. Then I entered the fist dungeon, died, tried again, died again and uninstalled the game.

Commandos I. Started the "Tutorial", got no insight, uninstalled the game.

Well, and for Starcraft - I do not know, if I was too stupid or just too slow.

X3. I'll try it again some day, but not now.

The stupidest thing of it all: I tried to print the .pdf manual. It used a black background and white text. In only a quick minute of printing, it used $50 worth of toner. I didn't even notice it until my printer beeped at me.

$20 game. $50 toner. That's a $70 disappointment.

But I'll play it again, some day. It looks very cool.

The first one they released for the DS. Also had the first one for the GBA and couldn't get anywhere in that one either.
Naw, you're right - it's a really hard game - I couldn't get anywhere in that either even though it looked so cool.
Yeah, the GBA Advanced Wars was just as difficult.

I got to the third / beach front level in Ground Control II the other night and it took me four hours straight and six reloads to get through it. There was no time to meticulously plan the best army or have the drop shop drop off a smart selection. It was all assholes and elbows and when it came down to it I was just sending in whatever as quick as I could and drag click grouping whatever to hurry up and move move move.

Something told me that some people can think faster and therefore plan better but for me there was no discrimination between soldier or armored truck because fast mouse work seemed to take priority over everything.
Ha! I remember paying $10 for Alpha Centauri and not liking the entire manual being pdf only so I called around to find out what I needed to print the mega manual and found that after all was said and done it would've cost me $80 to print the pdf!

Well yeah, that about sums it up.

Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business. I love Silent Storm, so I got this one from some promotion or other here on GOG. The game handed me a few clips of ammo and some crappy guns with 20% accuracy and immediately sent me trekking through enemy territory. I really didn't feel like spending the time necessary to scrape a victory out of that situation, especially since I was already unfamiliar with the interface and the rules. I am not interested in Jagged Alliance anymore.