For the early portions of Super Mario 3D Land, I was under the dual misconceptions that I didn't like it very much, and I wasn't doing the review. Both of those assumptions proved false after I found myself playing through about half the game in a single, nonstop session. It became clear that I liked it much more than I thought I did -- and I had inadvertently gotten well ahead of our assigned reviewer during my Mario fugue state, hence the duty shifted to me.
I also spent that first half of the game thinking this was the easiest Mario platformer I'd ever played. That turned out not to be the case at all.