Re: Hard Games Or Poor Level Design?
 

the problem came when you did not have 8 guys all working together. The game did not scale at all with less players, making it unplayable. I notice this a lot in games. Payday the Heist was another one that suffered unless you have a full party of 4. Doing it with one other friend was hair-pulling.

Re: Hard Games Or Poor Level Design?
 

Any game with an ESCORT MISSION where the Escortee is all over the map. You spend all this time trying to get them to follow you or hide behind a wall all while fighting enemies to protect them. I think I saw this issue on one of the Ghost Recon games.

Re: Hard Games Or Poor Level Design?
 

When the Hot Coffee mod was discovered, they recalled all of the original versions and stopped selling them. The new version that cut out Hot Coffee also patched that mission, so if you bought the game around mid-2005 or later it should be easier.

The problem with the old version was that the gas in the RC plane ran out regardless of if you were accelerating or not, gliding simply didn't work as it still used up gas. So the early version acted more as a time-based mission, while the later version you could glide halfway to your destinations and have no problem running out of fuel.

I know all this because I had the original version and helped a friend beat the mission on the new version :)

I had no idea why it was so much easier on his version until I looked it up online.