YMMV / NBA 2K

• Base-Breaking Character: B-Fresh of the MyCareer mode in 2K18 is either a likeable friend of DJ or a straight up narccisist that wants to be on the spotlight even though she doesn't need it. Despite this, even her critics would have her around than Vic Van Lier.
• Bile Fascination: The main reason people play 2K24 is to find out how the game ended up becoming the lowest rated game on Steam for a while.
• Critical Dissonance: Since 2K18 and especially with 2K20—while it got mixed to positive reviews from video game publications upon their release, they were savaged by irate gamers because of the current backlash against microtransactions, to the point of accusations 2K Games of rigging the positive reviews or handing out payola to games journalists to skew reception to their favour. Just how bad is it? NBA 2K20 has the critics score of 77, while the playerbase score is 12.
• Fan Nickname: In light of the controversy surrounding 2K's aggressive use of microtransactions and gambling-esque mechanics in recent installments of the series (and certain other Take-Two Interactive properties like Grand Theft Auto Online), 2K20 is derisively referred to by fans as NBA 2Kasino.
• Game-Breaker: Defied in the case of Stephen Curry. With Curry's unprecedented accuracy from three-point range, Visual Concepts actually nerfed what would accurately reflect his shooting skill in order to ensure gameplay, especially online, would not devolve into players picking the Warriors and shooting 3's with Curry with reckless abandon.
• Growing the Beard: While the 2K series has been perceived as the best-playing basketball series since its inception on the Dreamcast, its sales never blew the doors off until 2K11, which included The Jordan Challenge (in which you recreate Michael Jordan's famous games, with both his Bulls squads and opponents fully licensed). The series soon became a yearly top-10 seller and EA cancelled several Live/Elite iterations in the wake of 2K's stranglehold on the market. Furthermore, unlike most sports games that fade off the charts as seasons come to an end and disappear forever, 2K11 continued to sell well in the offseason and into the next season (the game being marked down in price once the season was over helped), as the Jordan Challenge kept 2K11 from being So Last Season like every other sports sim. 2K12 would have similar fortune when they upped the ante to include classic squads from various decades, including presentation filters to fit each time period.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While long a complaint with the series, NBA 2K20 has been hit especially hard with this, not helped by it feeling rushed to the point of embarrassingly having the previous game’s icon on PC.
• Just Here for Godzilla: As with most sports games, players get a chance to play as their favorite players and teams, or become an NBA Star with your Player Character in My Career mode.
  • The 2K11 Jordan Challenge and 2K12's NBA's Greatest; both games sold well in-season and out in large parts to those modes and the classic players/rosters/challenges within them. The Jordan Challenge would make a grand return in 2K23, with the option to use era-specific NBA rulebooks.
  • 2K13 for a dream match with Celebrity Team of Justin Bieber and many others big names.
  • 2K16's Livin' Da Dream mode is so hilariously filled with narm that many bought the game just to see it.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Classic Teams that are missing a large chunk of their original roster are rarely used since the missing players are replaced with generic MyPlayers with low stats, forcing players to either switch into those liabilities or keep their actual players until they're depleted of their stamina. Among the more unsightly examples is are the 04-05 Spurs, who only have seven normal players reduced to six with the removal of Manu Ginobili in 2K20. It got so bad with the 07-08 Hornets that they were removed in 2K20.
• Narm:
  • The voice acting in 2k15, being done by professional basketball players, most of whom aren't actors, is a goldmine of Dull Surprise.
  • Tons in 2k16's Livin' Da Dream mode:
    • The main character's name is Frequency Vibrations. "Freq" (pronounced "freak") for short.
    • As you'd expect from its author, the plot is clearly written assuming Freq is African American and biologically related to their family yet you are still allowed to change your character's ethnicity, which makes things awkward to say the least.
    • The story ends with a ghost giving a nine-minute monologue. In a sports game.
  • 2K22 has a section of The City dedicated entirely to advertising State Farm Insurance, complete with an appearance by Jake from State Farm. The interaction reeks of desperate corporate shilling, with Jake giving the Player Character a State Farm-themed outfit (which Jake refers to as "drip"), and ends with the PC geeking out over reciting the State Farm jingle with Jake.
    • Naturally, 2K23 has the same mission, saying they did this with a previous MP (short for My Player) and State Farm is a clothes supplier the same as every other branded outlet in the City, such as Adidas, Nike, etc.
• Obvious Beta: NBA 2K20 was infamously unpolished and bug-ridden at launch, even to the point of failing to update the PC version’s logo from the previous year.
• Questionable Casting: As noted under Narm, 2K15 used actual NBA players as voice actors for its story mode. As you might expect from people with little-to-no acting experience, they give less-than-stellar performances.
• Take That, Scrappy!: The wholly unlikeable Vic Van Lier dying in a car accident. Granted, the game tries to make you feel sorry, but it clearly doesn't work since he was such a jerk.
• The Scrappy:
  • Vic Van Lier from 2K16's story mode, a scumbag asshole "friend" of yours that immediately starts to mooch off of your character the minute you get famous and signed onto a team, getting himself in trouble and always calling on you to bail him out. When your character finally calls him out on this (you've spent 250,000 dollars cleaning up his messes) he actually starts to blackmail you and act like you owe him for not going to jail due to accidentally killing someone in self defense in a robbery in high school in order to blackmail you into letting him "borrow" one of your cars. Him then dying in a car crash can come as a relief to pretty much anyone playing the game. Oh and if you thought that was it for him, the final cutscene is a posthumous monologue from him about his life? A short one, you think? Nope, the whole thing runs nine minutes long, and is extremely self-aggrandizing because Vic talks about how the PC's family was like his true family because they always treated him like a friend away from his shitty home life...but that all falls flat due to how he treats you in the game. The fact that the game absolutely shills him after his death combined with Spike Lee having the audacity to use the term "Rest in Power", a term usually reserved for victims of such things as police shootings, to refer to Vic dying in a car crash only serves to make players hate him more.
  • 2K18's MyGM mode certainly is full of them, at least in year one. To elaborate: The team is sold to a glad-handing micromanager that wants to move the team to Seattle. He then needles you to try and move up into the Top 3 picks in the draft to snag one of 3 super-rookies and then hires his son Andrew as Assistant GM over your own objections, who then pushes for acquiring a high-PER player to "boost" the team. Said player then gets put on the untouchable list, which pushes Andrew to go rogue and force a trade. Said trade can end up either being a draft pick you wanted to use or a young player you know is good and want to keep. Andrew also trashes the star player of your team on "Tooter" and refuses to stop when called out on it. Luckily the default owner ends up being able to buy the team back and you are able to fire Andrew.
  • 2K20's Anderson Murray. A story character serving as the role of the "Crafty vet" for a few cutscenes. Which would be fine, except the game likes to force him into your rotation as well. At the expense of players way better to make room for him, often screwing up a rotation and forcing a player with a 71 overall into big minutes.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The face scan system is shaping up to be this. There is a Guide Dang It! way of getting it to work (in broad daylight open up the curtains, the more sun the better, and set up a white backdrop under a powerful overhead light and any other light source aimed at the face. Place the camera as close to head level as possible, then go shirtless and stand or sit as close as possible with your brow and shoulders in the frame. Only move your head when the game stops loading, a millimeter a second. Yes all these steps are necessary to get great results) but nine out of ten times even in broad daylight with studio quality lighting in the face they look utter crap, and quitting early or choosing not to upload causes the game to crack the shits completely and crash. That is, if it even lets you scan your head in to begin with.
  • NBA 2K14 will give you a technical foul for swearing if it gets picked up by Xbox One's Kinect or PlayStation 4's Camera. In a sense, the in-game referees punish you for swearing in the confines of your own home. Thankfully, you can turn it off by disabling voice commands.
• Sequelitis: Starting from the 2016-2017 era when the game starts to selling stuff through Microtransactions to the point that the game feels like an Allegedly Free Game despite the game was, and still is, paid-for. It reached its peak in 2023 with the release of NBA 2K24, which instantly became the lowest rated game on Steam after it launched. Though it has since been dethroned from that spot, it still has almost 90% negative reviews on Steam.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Prior to the increased budget post-2K11, many games featured this for in-game arena music.
• Tainted by the Preview: The unironic introduction and all-points broadcast of actual casino-esque minigames into the lootbox-laden NBA 2K20 led the fandom to revulsion-induced outrage, amplified by the fact that the game is rated E (ESRB) or PEGI 3, ratings reserved for games suitable for children. The PEGI responded to the controversy, saying a game is only flagged as gambling if it teaches or encourages players to gamble money in real life, but it would continue monitoring the situation. Though given the in-your-face promotion of casino mechanics in the now-delisted trailer, PEGI's response was also met with harsh criticism casting doubt on the integrity of rating systems and how their ties to corporate game publishers led to allegations of corruption within the games industry.
• Tough Act to Follow: The completely baller opening for 2K12. Many feel the intro scenes peaked there, and the following ones just couldn't top it.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The team owner in 2K16 is actually this in hindsight. He is supposedly portrayed as someone who wants to break the friendship of Freq and Vic, but when it turns out he was actually right about the problems regarding Vic, many fans felt sorry for him and wish Freq just listened to him in the first place.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Vic Van Lear, mentioned above under The Scrappy. It’s obvious that Spike Lee wants us to sympathize with him despite the man’s behavior meaning he’s nothing of the sort.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • Specifically, the casino minigames in 2K20 which became a point of contention amongst both fans and legislators — not only that it was seen as shameless avarice on part of Take-Two Interactive, some expressed concern that this, while not necessarily involving gambling for real-world funds, could be a gateway for youths to take up gambling.
  • Not to mention the plotline of Vic Van Lier, a "friend" who blackmails you, then gets himself killed in a car accident (in a car they took from the MyPlayer character).

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