Why is it that we think the beta of certain games are better than the final product?

Take Luigi’s Mansion for example, many people think the idea of the poltergust overheating and having a time limit to save Mario would’ve been better.  
Another thing is Team Fortress 2, many people seem to have interests in skins replicating the way the classes looked in the first two trailers from 2006. It weirds me out.

…maybe it goes back to even before this, but I think alot of it has to do with the legendary Sonic 2 beta. Probably the biggest bombshell was that the Hidden Palace Zone and Master Emerald, which we later see in Sonic and Knuckles, was originally going to appear in Sonic 2. In fact, just about all the levels were replaced: there was going to be a desert zone, a wood zone, and apparently a level named “Genocide City Zone” (although it’s an empty level, which pretty much caused it to receive the most speculation). There were even some badniks that got scrapped like a little t-rex robot. The fascination for the Sonic 2 beta is perhaps rivaled only by that of Sonic Xtreme, and that game got canned altogether. So, I guess the short answer is that gamers get wrapped up in the enigma of the games they can’t have, or something like that.

Same thing with the Half Life 2 beta. Lots of speculation about how the Hydra enemy would work and a good portion of the weapons getting scrapped. I think archestereo hit it on the head about the games that gamers can’t have.

@Apokalypse  
Speaking of Half-Life, has any footage of Episode 3 of 2 been released yet?

@CrashSucksMariosaGOD  
Any and all footage of Half Life Ep 3 has been retroactively been converted into a video of Gabe sitting naked in a tub of money eating a meatball sub and laughing.

The Minecraft community is filled with people like this.
 
Then again, every time the game releases a major update there is bound to be some people that will complain about it and say that the older game was better.

…ya know what would be the next logical step after Sonic Generations? A reboot: they start the Death Egg Saga over, starting with a remake of Sonic 2, but this time it’s more like the beta version.
 
…oh, and it better have a good engine this time, we haven’t had one since the Genesis games.
 
…Seriously. No scripting nonsense. plz.

There’s a guy who’s making a mario 64 beta revival.  
here

Yeah, as a long time fan of various HL2 SMOD, which is essentially a mod that pulls alot of ideas an unused ideas / content that we would have seen in HL2 Beta…I can say that it’s clear they made a lot of changes to the game’s weapons and general FPS gunplay to cater more towards using the Gravity Gun.  
In playing around with simple things like custom weapon scrips, the base FPS gamefeel of HL2 is massivly improved upon I feel. The game also benefits from giving the player a traditional “walking arsenal” feel like in the First game and it’s “expansions”.
 
As well something I saw recently in a video about Goldeneye on the 64 - Rare was going to include a feature of taking the Rumble-Pak in / out of the controller slot and letting the player mimic the actions of changing clips. I think that would have been really cool!

@WassonG  
Yeah, that would be kickass.
 
As for betas, the beta BFG for DooM seems a lot cooler than the final version.

Or think about the ßetas of games that had content that needed to be cut for console release, e.g. GTA sin(pamelaAnderson)  
With these cuts being applied to the pee sea version as well (boo!)

@archestereo  
“Probably the biggest bombshell was that the Hidden Palace Zone and Master Emerald, which we later see in Sonic and Knuckles, was originally going to appear in Sonic 2.”  
Hidden Palace Zone, yes, but in a very different form. Master Emerald, no.  
“In fact, just about all the levels were replaced:”  
Indeterminate.  
“and apparently a level named ‘Genocide City Zone’”  
Later reused in Sonic Spinball.

@Background Pony
 
Yeah, I didn’t mean to mislead, of course beta Hidden Palace was different from S&K palace; but no Master Emerald? Dude, there was a screenshot of it and everything! Also, where in Sonic Spinball was Genocide City used?