1) First off, I'm going to get flamed to hell and back for this but...The demand for Long Games. I like short games. Gimme a short game with excellent gameplay and I'm hooked. When I finish, I crave more. I don't like losing interest halfway through. It's not that I have a short attention span, it's that no matter how hard the developers try, crouching behind a wall/car/bush/kitten in Gears of War does not feel any different in the middle than it does in the beggining. Variety's nice, but there's only so much you can do with one engine. I usually have to buy three games so I can swap em' out when I get bored. It annoys my family like no ones business but there you have it.
2) Secondly, Overhype. Word of mouth Overhype. I was assaulted my entire eighth grade year by the words 'Gears' 'of' 'War' 'is' and 'Awesome'. I'm pretty damn sure I heard my whole English class collectively moan as they creamed their pants when one of the kids who sits in the back said those dirty nasty words. Then I sit down expecting some super hot asian chick to come out and spoon feed me ramen noodles while she put my moan maker in her face hole as soon as I inserted the disk and I got...Overly beefy macho men grunting and chainsawing as they grinded themselves against six hours of waist high walls. I don't mean to sound like Yahtzee, but that was one of the things that he pointed out that I agreed with.
<__>
*caugh* Looking at you too Halo *Caugh*