I don't like durability mechanics when its clearly there just to waste your time or money or whatever. Any game that makes you do more hiking to repair benches than fighting is either getting a thumbs down or I'm going to download a mod.
justdaveisfine
So far the biggest issues I've faced are League of Legends and funky network driver issues. One of those I can work at, the other not so much.
I've seen prototypes of RPGs where you could freeform talk to NPCs and I pretty quickly lost enthusiasm for the idea after seeing it in action.
It didn't feel like a DnD game where you're maneuvering a social conflict with the DM or other players, it felt more like the social equivalent of jumping up on a table where an NPC couldn't get to you and stabbing them in the face.
This is a weirdo complaint but one thing I don't like that some modern games keep doing is adding a lot of visual/texture noise by having a lot of details.
Sometimes its OK, but sometimes it gets difficult to tell what's going on in the chaos of a fight. Combined with particle effects, reflections, and the DLSS or FSR or whatever and it gets to be a bit of an eye strainer.
Halos usually pretty good about strong enemy colors and easy to read room layouts but a few glimpses of this have me raising an eyebrow.
For some reason any time I have ever brought up playing a centaur, every DM always shoots it down either saying its a serious campaign or it doesn't fit the vibe.
I'm not sure what everyone has against them so I've assumed they're either broken somehow or that someone will attempt the centaur stacking shenanigans.
Is that... Pepper as a playable character?
This one is starting to sway one direction more than the other but: Using AI for indie game development. (For music, voice work, art, code, writing, gameplay, etc)
You've probably seen many arguments for and against AI at this point so I won't harp on that too much. It is interesting/frustrating to see where some devs focuses are, and why this has contributed to an insane amount of AI art in games lately.
Depending on what you're looking for in critique, Steam may not be a great place to get feedback. If you're looking for just a handful of focus users, you're better off uploading a game to itch.io and then asking people to try it via whatever relevant channels you're looking at.
Steam is better for reviews. Though reviews are not aimed at the dev but aimed at potential buyers which is very different looking.
Its a different approach I think.
Most franchise titles are wishlisted because you want to probably buy it when it comes out. (Unless it had horrible launch issues)
Indie games get wishlisted because you're interested in the title but are going to wait for reviews or sales or some other factor. Its probably not an immediate day 1 buy unless its something you're just really looking forward to.
I briefly considered starting an open source game project but seeing this kind of stuff keeps me away Lol.
Also my code sucks - Which doesn't stop me from making games but still.
Ah another one - Forced stealth sections where you can't be detected at all. Especially in a game where stealth is optional or not even a thing you can really do normally.