The only reason he lost out on expectations is because people expected too much of him. No matter what a President may say they are going to do, it is really just a list of what they want to do, and no President has superpowers. The majority of "failures" of Obama can be attributed to a recession that was worse than people realized in 2008, and the lack of cooperation from Congress (mostly Republicans, but even some Democrats). Some can be attributed to Obama being naive about the Republicans and cooperation during the first year or two, which means he lost out on an opportunity to steam roll legislation through Congress. Since the 2010 elections, it has essentially been impossible to get anything through Congress.