YMMV / Operation

• Harsher in Hindsight: The game’s creator, John Spinello, was unable to pay for his own surgery since he never received any royalties from the game. He was offered a job when he pitched it, but was turned down when he showed up. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that a crowdfunding campaign paid for his surgery, and Hasbro officially purchased the game’s prototype from him.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The PC game, due to Adaptation Expansion, had a lot of ailments that weren't originally present in the board game (Elbow Grease, Spare Tire, Voice Box, Knot in the Stomach...). One of these was the Tennis Elbow; in 2004, Hasbro held a poll for one of three ailments to be added to future revisions of the game. Although Brain Freeze was the eventual winner, Tennis Elbow was one of the options.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Cavity Sam is awake during his surgery and looks completely terrified. There’s also Fridge Horror when you start wondering how all of those objects ended up inside him in the first place.
  • The box art shows a few non-surgical instruments under the operating table. They include a saw, a hammer, nails, an oil can, a blowtorch, and a bicycle pump. Maybe it's best not to think about what the doctors were planning on doing with those.
  • The doctors themselves shown on the box are creepy as well, what with the Einstein-like Mad Scientist surgeon wearing no shoes and having his underwear exposed through his uniform, also standing on a stool for ineffective elevation and unconcernedly jamming a pair of tweezers through his leg. Also the younger doctor to the right who looks like Principal Rooney on crack, made all the more disturbing by the fact that he used to be smoking a cigar on the original cover with the ash falling onto Sam's face.
  • The fact that there are two little kids happily assisting the surgeons during this medical procedure.
  • The buzzer itself is enough to let out even the slightest of shivers. Even with it being the whole point of the game, it still produces a lot of Jump Scare and makes you concerned over the electrical sparks the metal edges provoke.
  • The box art for the Spider-Man version shows Doc Ock operating on Spidey, who looks dazed.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many people have not been too fond of the modern renditions of the game.
  • The "Silly Skill Game" edition has been criticized due to its inexplicable exclusion of the card and money system that the original game had, instead having the player who collected the most ailments win, which ultimately defeats the purpose of the game. They've also been harsh on the new funanatomy parts for containing crude Toilet Humor and less colloquial pun-oriented body parts in contrast to the previous edition.
  • 2013 saw the release of a newer version now with "easier-to-remove pieces" as advertised, which doubly defeats the purpose of the game for you're likely to complete the game in under a minute without setting off the buzzer at least once.
  • Thankfully, this seems to be subverted now with subsequent renditions of the game, which have brought back both the money and card system and classic ailments of the original game, albeit with the same makeover update of the patient.