Pointless button actions that fail to enhance my enjoyment

In researching the best Zelda clone games for a story I’m working on, I recently played Darksiders for PS3, Xbox 360, and (coming soon) to PC. It’s an okay game with awesome production values, and it’s very reminiscent of Zelda.

That said, it’s one of many modern games that feel the need to artificially inflate the number of buttons used, as if they add any real value to the experience. For example, combat in Darksiders is pure hack and slash. So you’d think you can button mash your way to victory. But no, the developer requires that you press a secondary attack button to finish off your enemies.

It may not sound like a big deal. And other games require secondary or tertieary buttons for strategic purposes. But in this case it doesnt work. It feels forced. Pointless. Letting me cycle through X number of primary buttons presses would have been more enjoyable, since this combat is neither strategic nor puzzling.

My rant aside, what other games make poor use of button actions?