Alright, so this is borne out of a certain thread which shall not be named, where the discussion briefly touched on people having a pretty good idea of what they like to play, and knowing from the off whether to bother with it at all. I do this all the time personally.

I think I'm paraphrasing @skerret here but the sentiment goes something like this:

I've been playing games for 20+ years so I can tell how something will play 99/100 times just by looking at a few videos/reviews

So I'm guilty of this kind of thing: one recent example was The Last of Us. I knew exactly how it would play based on screenshots/previews/past games by the developer, and gave it a miss because the hype was quite frankly irritating from some quarters (mainly GAF). I eventually gave in and bought it, played it, and whilst none of it surprised me, it was still of an incredibly high quality and undeniably a fun game. 

We've probably all had similar experiences in terms of knowing what a game is like, but what about not knowing what a game is like and writing it off? Over the past 18 months Ive probably stayed mainly within the confines of Nintendo first party, and a lot of that is still in varied genres, but not so much in varied tones or narrative styles. I tend to value gameplay more than story to begin with, but perhaps I'm inadvertently missing a number of great games. Rather - I know I'm missing some great games, but I might be missing some games that could even have snuck into my "favourites of all time" list. e.g. something like Remember Me could have been a Beyond Good and Evil experience. Forza Horizon might have been a PGR2 experience. Some obscure indie game on mobile might have been a moment of pure genius like Pixeljunk Monsters. Maybe my intolerance of buggy games has led me to miss out on something worth persevering with.

So here's a challenge of sorts. 

Play something new. Something you think you know. Something you're scared to try or something you think you would hate. Anything you wouldn't play normally. Rent it, PSN/GWG it, sail the high seas, whatever. Then report back on whether you were wrong.

My challenge: Demons Souls. I know its well received. I haven't played it because it intimidates me. Tomorrow I'm going to grab it and give it a go. 

Report back on if you were wrong in a week.