Actually I don't see any real problem with this fundementally, though it IS a bad trailer in of itself.
Let's be honest, entertainment doesn't have to be "high brow" in order to be good. Maturity does not mean intellectually or emotionally complicated.
I think one of the problems here is more that gaming is going mainstream, while still having a core of fairly intellecual gamers, who bust on the T&A and such not because they aren't interested but because they are seeing stuff that used to be fairly quiet being promoted like a beer commercial.
I'll also be honest in saying that your typical gamer nowadays is a moron. No offense to anyone in paticular. The gamer of yesterday might have been anti-social and slightly mentally disturbed (teenager optional) but was also typically pretty smart, and it took some brains to really get into computer games. You needed to know DOS to some extent, or how to work a Commodore (Load "*" ,8,1 .... Ready.... run). To talk to people over the internet you needed to be able to work communications programs like "Procomm" or "Simterm" or any one of dozens of others. You would follow echos, but probably need to learn how to set up and use programs like "Bluewave" to read your messages and such. "Online Gaming" primarily consisted of games like "Tradewars" or "Land Of Devestation" where differant people would log into a BBS and make their moves when they were on. Very, very few people gaming today could have grasped this, and compartively speaking gamers, especially computer gamers were rare then. Even though many people CLAIM to have started with the NES or SNES or other systems to sound big and "old" compared to the current audience there weren't that many machines out there. Just by the numbers that makes probably like 80% of the people claiming to have played those game as anything other than ROMS liars.
Let's be honest, Darksiders is not a deep game to begin with, and is being marketed for the mainstream. The premise (being War) is almost identical to another popular franchise of games very similar to it (as Yahtzee pointed out). It shouldn't surprise anyone how it's promoted.
See, the thing is that gamers, even back in the day, enjoyed all the T&A and stuff. I spent many hours defending fantasy art, including that on some video game box covers. Mindless action games can also be VERY good. However back in the day a lot of this was "intellectual slumming" for the people playing the games. Nothing wrong with that, but today I think older gamers and those who got into gaming for more complicated and "smarter" games need to increasingly realize that this isn't so much an insult towards us, but rather directed towards the majority of gamers, who aren't themselves being insulted.... that's really the level they are at.
As insulting to many as this might seem, consider it's like this with everything that starts with a relatively small and elite audience, and then goes into the mainstream. Indie bands sell out and change their style to appeal to the mainstream, Authors change to formula writing once established to appeal to the masses, TV shows and movies get more banal as they go on in many cases in reaction to their viewership increasing (and some writers will even talk about not wanting to lose new viewers, and thus needing to keep things shallow and not too dependant on previous seasons or expanding concepts and such).
Oh sure, it would be nice to "uplift" humanity as a whole, and then be able to appreciate games like they used to be, but with modern technology behind them, but it's just not happening. As time goes on expect MORE of this kind of thing (albeit hopefully with better quality) and be grateful for the good games that appear that aren't slowly fodder for the mainstream grindhouse.
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Oh and right now for those who read this far, I believe we are looking at a gaming trinity here (unexpectedly).
Right now we have THREE God Of War clones. We have:
#1: Darksiders, which caters primarily to lowbrow violence, and has been promoted by scenes of vicious violence and carnage.
#2: Bayonetta, which caters primarily to lowbrow sex and T&A, though having some elements of the above. It's been promoted almost entirely though innuendo, ranging from "peel the fliers fromt he character" posters in Japan, to dance clips on Youtube. The basic thing's promotion largely comes down to how hawt Bayonetta is/is supposed to be.
#3: Dante's Inferno, which includes both of the above to some extent, and has been promoted virally through puzzles and hints, which had everyone into gaming, wondering everytime we'd spot something odd if it was a promotional gimmick for Dante's Inferno. Many of which (Mass We Pray) were quite creative. The nature of the advertising, and such makes me hope that this game is meant to appeal to a smarter audience. If correct there, it also shows that this CAN be done while maintaining the selling points in the other two games above, as well as making it kind of clear that the above two elements ALSO appeal to even the "smartest" crowd.
Such have been my thoughts for a while, and I hope I'm right. I am hoping Dante's Inferno becomes the "Beat 'Em Up" for the serious gamer crowd, and furthermore I am hoping it surpasses Darksiders and Bayonetta in just about every conceivable way (and it is noteworthy that I will be getting Dante's Inferno, but have been waiting for the other two games as budget fodder if at all)
