I was surprised to see SUNY Albany - a couple years ago, Playboy didn't even rank it in their top party school lists because it said it deserved it's own category or something along those lines. In terms of academics and people being satisfied with those... that doesn't come as a surprise to me at all though regarding SUNY Albany.
As someone who attended SUNY Albany, I can definitely attest to the unhappiness there. The entire campus is grey cement, and the weather is cold and snowy from October to May. It snowed the day I went home my freshman year on May 15.
School spirit is non-existant, probably because the sports teams all suck. The only thing to do around town is get drunk at some of the dirtiest, hole-in-the-wall bars imaginable. There really isn't much entertainment to be had in Albany besides that.
The party crap is over-rated publicity BS. In reality, the school administration didn't let the surveyors on campus a few years back, so the only people that they could interview were those living off campus -- that included frat houses. It's sad because that reputation overshadows the fact that Albany has a lot of good academic programs.
But, they paid my tuition, so I went there.