Evidence A

Please examine this image to the right. It's from a game called Cold Winter, which IGN just reviewed. Now, I'm not knocking the review. Not saying it's off-base or anything. However this image is apparently indicative of a 6.5 on the IGN scale, which in scientific terms is something of "slightly above average", but academically we all know that a C+ isn't going to make your parents happy.

Point? Point is that there's nothing really wrong that I can tell from the screenshots except that it doesn't look as good as the wow candy we've all seen recently. So while some people didn't like Doom 3 because it was too dark and scary, it still raises the bar for everyone. The review very aptly points out the differences between the game's mechanics (good) and it's production values (not so good, except oddly the voice acting).

I couldn't get a read for how bad the framerate is. That would be a potential deal killer, but everything else is just indicative of how production orientated mainstream gaming has gotten. How the hell do people keep up with that? If me and some friends had put together something equivalent to those screenshots and people complained it looked like crap, I'd never stop groaning.

Like I said, I don't the review is wrong.

But I think it's an indication of what's wrong.