I worked at GameStop at the time. The policy was absolutely no returns on new titles that had been opened. The day after the launch was not a fun day. We even had people trade it in for probably less than half of what they paid
Fuck GameStop. They treat customers bad and employees worse. Do not fucking support them
I still haven't properly played, I pre-ordered. I had some ok fun when it came out, got tempted about the plot, saw the miles of posts saying "fuck going to the center of the universe, not worth it" and left it alone.
I'm still ok with having made the pre order, because my motives have always been "I liked joe danger , and the small team behind it say they've got the balls to procedurely generate an entire universe? OK, let's make it happen." and they did. As far as I'm concerned, I got what I paid for.
now I just gotta be in the mood to play a crafting exploration game. I've been waiting for quite a few years... I'm afraid to check how many, because it's going to make me feel ancient
I think most Atari 2600 games fell into this trap, not just because they tended to have some of the most awesome covers and lacking tech, but some were just awful ports or phoned in licensed games.
I don't have many specifically coming to mind, but the Raiders of the Lost Ark game had a really cool cover (still does, but also used to), but the game was an impenetrable mess, both visually and from a game play standpoint. It was quite complex though, so maybe there was something interesting beneath the depths that kid me could never figure out.