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It doesn't seem to matter how well the attack goes, how careful the plan is, or how thoroughly the bad guy is trounced. It doesn't matter how much of his plan goes as planned, how much of it you successfully foil, or how close to the end you are. None of it matters, and for one very valid reason: the bad guy always has his finger on the button. The doomsday machine is one step away from coming online; the comet's on its way; the gateway to Hell is about to open; a good old-fashioned nuclear missile is sitting in the silo, ready to launch; whatever the method, imminent destruction is always hanging over the good guy's head, even if there's only one bad guy left. Always, and at all times, until the bad guy has been killed at least twice - not counting the final death in the cutscene - and the credits have started to roll.
Before we go any further, let me clarify that not all villains go the "Hey, baby! Wanna kill all the humans?" route. This isn't a blanket discussion of all villains from the morally ambiguous to the vaguely evil. I'm talking about true, honest-to-badness sociopathic villains. Not the ones who think they have a better way of doing things, or the ones with a Machiavellian-slash-"ends justify the means" take on life, but the ones who really, really hate life and pretty much everyone in it. The ones that not only don't have a problem killing unarmed prisoners, but get their jollies from it. These are the guys that stand there chanting in front of the portal long after their faithful have dispersed, or that sit there and wait for the good guys to dispatch the last few defenders, a weapon in one hand and a deadman switch to a live nuke in the other.
Simply put, with these kinds of bad guys, it ain't over 'till it's over. This is not without purpose. Having a lot of things riding on a hero is a good way to motivate him to do well, especially if those things are millions of innocent people; it's a good reminder that he's not the only one who suffers if he fails. Furthermore, it gives a justification for why one villain - even just one - is still a threat after the forces of darkness have been soundly knocked into the next zip code, thus setting up the dramatic final confrontation between the hero and the villain. It's quite literally the perfect reason to go after the bad guy alone - not after reinforcements show up, not after weeks of rebuilding and a nationwide manhunt, not even after a five-minute power nap, but right this second.
To put it another way, this kind of villain has to have some measure of success within his reach at all times. A one-man apocalypse, so to speak.
What else could bring a sense of urgency to one last encounter with one measly bad guy? There's certainly drama to be had in a one-on-one showdown, but the peril is gone. Any reason to go it alone outside of the threat of mass death would likely be personal: closure, revenge, honor; these kinds of problems rarely have time factored in, and never are they so urgent as preventing the extinction of all who live. Certainly these are all well and good reasons to pursue the bad guy, but not one of them has quite the same effect as "If you don't, we will all die." It's basic, it's blunt, and it's the only sane reason to go after the bad guy alone.
They don't go gently.
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