I work in video games, so my experience isn't at all typical of programming more generally. The big issues are that:

• Development priorities and design are driven by marketing.
• Lots of time is spent doing throwaway work for particular demos. I (and many others) wasted a couple weeks hacking together a scripted demo for E3 that will never be seen again.
• The design for my portion of the project has changed directions numerous times, and each new version of the feature has been implemented in a rush, so we still have bits of code from five iterations ago hanging around, causing bugs.
• Willingness to work extremely long hours (70+/week) is a badge of pride. I'm largely exempt from this because I'm a contractor and paid hourly, but my salaried coworkers frequently complain about not seeing enough of their families. On the other hand, some of the grateful to have an excuse to get away from their families.
• The downside of being a contractor is that I don't get benefits like health insurance, sick days, paid time off, etc.

Many of these issues are specific to the games industry and my employer particularly, and shouldn't be considered representative of programming in general. Quality of life in the industry varies widely.