King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity. Even as a kid, I felt like it was a very strange gore-and-action focus shift for the King's Quest series. Only as an adult did I hear the story of executive meddling that lead to the complete tone and gameplay shift.

I’m sure there are lots of examples for me, but I guess one that comes to mind is 007: The World Is Not Enough for PS1.

Reading/hearing about it as an adult, not only is it seen as a poor follow up to Goldeneye, but also the PS1 version is the worse of the two releases, with the general consensus being that the N64 version is better.

Back in the day, though, I didn’t know any better and I loved it. I expect most people have games like that.

I spent a lot of time playing Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts alone and online with friends. A lot of people I've talked to view it negatively and are surprised when I say it was one of my favorite 360 titles. It's one of the main reasons I want to try out Xbox 360 emulation.

Two Worlds 1-2 There are tons of youtubers making joke videos about these games, but against all the jank I alway found them both enjoyable and even I dare say good games. The magic system in particular was amazing.

Dying Light 2. It was definitely different than the first game, but I enjoyed many of the changes. My buddies and I spent a lot of time just running around killing Volatiles, and having a blast while doing so. But apparently a lot of the changes were deeply unpopular with fans of the first game.

Ultima IX: Ascension (1999)

I genuinely enjoyed the game. Fans of the series claim that it destroyed the franchise. Perhaps they're right, but the franchise was pretty fucked up to begin with.

Aero the Acrobat for GBA.

Cheap Sonic ripoff? I loved that game. Spent many childhood hours and AA batteries playing it and learning every corner of every level.

Final Fantasy XV. (I just played the Royal Edition with all DLCs, I don't know how the Base Game was without the extra stuff) Man I love that game, I love the Characters, the Lore, the cinematics, the movie, the anime, the world, the gameplay. The Gameplay is soooo fucking fun, switching between Characters, switching between weapons with Noctis. The Animations are beautiful. I'm probably one of the only people on earth that is happy that we left the open World after a while and the game is more on rails. Because the Moment the Story is getting interesting, the pacing is way better.

Might & Magic VIII. The ending was underwhelming in comparison to previous parts, yes, but gameplay is exactly the same.

Literally every MMORPG targeted at an oldschool/hardcore/PvP oriented audience. Without fail the related comments and reviews will be littered by people angrily ranting on how these games are outdated and should change to be more casual

Dying Light 2. I honestly have no idea why so many people prefer the original.

I can't think of any that I wasn't fully aware of the criticism.

But I did play No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, and Fallout 76 for hundreds of hours each right at launch and enjoyed every moment without significant issues, despite being fully aware of all the hate being thrown at them at the time.

Jaws on the NES. I absolutely loved that game, but I found out many years later that it was hated.

Kings quest 8. Universally panned as a "bad Kings quest game" and I agree, It's a terrible entry to the kings quest series. But when you look at this quirky adventure game from a modern perspective you can see it was really ahead of it's time. It has an unmatched vibe and atmosphere.