What makes a hard game feel fair

I lose in tower defence and strategy games all the time, and I'm fine with it, as long as the loss makes sense. The games that annoy me aren't the hard ones; they're the ones that hide information.

A fair game shows you what's coming. Wave previews, enemy stats, clear tells before a big attack. When I lose, I want to be able to point at the decision that did it. That's what makes me hit retry instead of uninstall.

Unfair difficulty usually means surprise. A boss with a mechanic you couldn't have known about, or a spike that assumes an upgrade the game never let you build. That's not challenge, it's a gotcha.

When I review these games, this is the thing I watch most closely. Ironhold Wardens gets it right; it's brutal, but every loss taught me something. That's the standard I hold the rest to.