There's a lot of factors that contribute to lousy game design. So much so, that you can pretty much predict when a game has little or no chance of being fun. First of all, take an up and coming property, from film, television or comics. Then take an existing game design and slap the characters from that property into the game design. Under no circumstances should you try to make the resulting game try to match the spirit of the original property (though you can steal a few "catch phrases" from the property so folks can hear them endlessly).

One more thing - put in a ridiculously short production schedule and make sure there's lots of people who have little or no experience with making games calling the shots, changing the scope and direction of the game at the drop of a hat and keep the developers from actually concentrating on the job at hand.

There. You've made a lousy game. That was easy, wasn't it? But stay tuned, because GC's meddling with Cy's historical recreation of Gettysburg has just begun!