That's a tough one, love is such a strong word. I really enjoyed Project Snowblind, a fairly standard FPS with special powers thrown in. It was intended to be a Deux Ex game, but it was remixed and re-branded before it came out. It's available on Gametap if anyone wants to check it out!

Kohan 2. A RTS game that really focused on the strategy aspect versus the tactical combat that passes for strategy in so many games in this genre. You create armies with units that act intelligently and independently. So for example, if your army has spell-throwers and healers they will cast those spells and heal without micromanagement, leaving you to focus on maneuvering the armies and paying attention to their formations.

Another nice touch was that if units left battle damaged but not destroyed, they would slowly heal over time so there could be a lot of back and forth in battle since smart players would often retreat instead of letting their armies be annihilated.

Oh, and no dirt farming! Resources were set up as a balance in a way that's hard to describe but you never had to build a single peon unit to mine or chop wood.

And Dysplastic, I totally agree with you on the Quest for Glory games. Great blends of adventure, RPG elements and story.

Great thread idea! For me:

Gradius V/Ikaruga - Critically acclaimed but both bombed in sales. Some of the finest shooters in years. I've heard rumours of Ikaruga for XBLA with Live play and I salivate at the thought.
Excite Truck - Got lackluster reviews but I still find this great fast-paced fun. It's a lean game to be sure but what it does is done well. I get the same feeling playing this that I used to get playing driving games like Road Riot 4WD in the arcades.
Red Steel - Undoubtedly will raise eyebrows but despite the horrid reviews and what are some obvious flaws, I thought this game was a great rental that showed a proof of concept for FPS games on the Wii. I hope that Ubisoft will learn how to better tweak the sequel but I thought this game got beat up on because despite reviewers claiming that the Wii's reduced graphics capability would be considered, most reviews hit it because of weak visuals.
Amplitude - Harmonix's second rhythm game for the PS2. I did not like Frequency at all but this game was brilliant and did a fantastic job of putting a music game on a controller. It was well reviewed but failed commercially.
Psychonauts - One of the most brilliant games of the last decade and despite it getting talked about a lot, still almost no one has played it.
Beyond Good & Evil - See above.
Alien Hominid - This game and the developer have still not turned a profit and that is nothing short of a travesty. Fantastic action platformer that everyone should play.

Red Faction, Psychonauts. More to come if I ever remember them.

For example, if I said Tenchu Z was more fun than the ratings would suggest, I'd be well within the confines of this thread, aside from the "love" part.

Not sure if Amplitude was underrated. Critics loved it. But if that counts, that would be one of my favorites ever. To this day I still feel it's a more enjoyable game than Guitar Hero.

All Pro Football 2k8 isn't getting the best reviews and I think it's great.

I loved Electroplankton for the DS, even though it got low scores.

Tough one. I definitely second the Quest for Glory series. Another couple of games I've loved whic got (comparatively) little official coverage:

- Anachronox (PC CRPG with a wicked sense of humor and some great voicework which more than made up for some of the lousier gameplay designs and a rushed ending)
- Gladius (PS2 turn-based tactical Gladiator combat, I still think it was one of the best in the genre on the PS2)
- Silent Storm (PC turn-based tactical WW2 commando style - the voice acting was horrible, the stroyline a bit over the top, and levelling broken, but actual mission gameplay was a blast)
- Europa Universalis, Victoria, and Paradox games in general (PC strategy - I know that there is a fair share of Paradox fans on these boards)

Mmmm, I loved part 1 of the Kohan versions. Part two made some subtle changes from part 1, which I didn't like.

I don't think Oblivion or Psychonauts can be considered "underrated". Both had extremely positive reviews - 93.1% for Oblivion and 89.6% for Psychonauts at Gamerankings. We might as well say Diablo or Half-Life were underrated.

I think one of my all-time favorite underrated games was Sacred (75.9% at Gamerankings). It was horribly buggy and got decidedly mediocre reviews when it arrived, it turned into my favorite game of the year a couple of years ago. The story was a bit hackneyed and the zoom levels drove me nuts, but the free-form world, exploration, enemies, loot and character classes were a blast.

Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic

Edit add: Someone mentioned the link sucked on the : in it so here it is plain vanilla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel_Worlds_I:_Future_Magic

How can I even start my description of this game to me. When it came out it was easily the best game on the market for me. It maintained an amazing RPG element while also allowing you to have a kind of spacefarers exploration along with even mining and resource trading if you wanted. I played this game from start to finish perhaps about three times back in the day and am very much bummed that I lost the disks to the game a very long time ago. I can't say how many hours I spent playing this game but I know it had to be around 300 or so if not more. I always wanted more of the series to come out and secretly wished for it. Hard Nova I never did play though in hind sight I really should have.

Oh well that's my game for this thread.

Edit add: Is there a flag in the admin section of the forums to allow for double quotes around the address in URL code? Such as - [url="address with funky symbols like the one in this post with a : in it"]Reference Link[/url] oh and btw Bracket Code Close Bracket also doesn't work.

Wow, I don't think of ever heard anyone else mention that game before. It really was a great game, ahead of it's time with the open ended structure.

My pick for an underrated game would be Dark Cloud 2. I thought it had some interesting game elements and a pretty well told story.

I also enjoyed FFX-2, although the first two hours or so were a bit tough to deal with. If you liked FFX, you'll probably like FFX-2, at least past the first two hours or so.

Okami for sure. I love that game.

I had a surprising amount of fun and playtime with Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It's a terrible game in many respects; the voice acting is poor, the story is sophomoric... but, yet, somehow, it's fun. And it's fun several times through. It got many bad reviews -- and it deserved them -- but somehow it rises far above the sum of its parts.

Gothic 3. It got panned quite a bit for it's bugginess. But i loved it. It's handcrafted world was just so much fun to explore compared to Oblivion for me.

The Mark of Kri - I totally got into the hand drawn art style. It also had a decent combat system.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightspeed_(computer_game)]Lightspeed[/url]

It was my elite.