The type of game that when you recommend it, you have to clarify they need to play a few hours before they'll understand.
To me, many JRPGs have this problem. Xenoblade, Final Fantasy (14 especially), Tales, Kiseki, etc all take forever to get interesting.
A lot of old mmorpgs that took inspiration from Everquest. The beginning is a slog of killing 15 rats for pelts and turning them in or flat out grinding in boring zones for 10 levels. Things don't start to pick up until you become a lowbie and start getting into lowbie groups.