I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
Sometimes you are high on hopium and copium, you’re hoping that it gets better later on, or you just overlook some problems.
Sometimes you’re already too used to the game, so it doesn’t fully entertain, but it isn’t “feeling” like a waste of time yet. This happens a lot with “endless” games like most MMOs and “game as a service”