Irridium said:
The areas were streamlined. Today's market just can't handle multiple areas with different layouts, it confuses and scares them. So now the levels are all the same, meaning nobody will have to think or be bored exploring anymore.
Thats probably not what happened, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
"Dumbing it down" is such an overused explanation for everything. It's either used as a way to hand-wave things you disagree with, or a poor excuse for why something sucks. In this case, it's more likely just developers not paying attention to the fact that we're running through the same cavern for the fifteenth time.
I saw someone complain that the DA2 art style was dumbed down, and I had absolutely no clue what they meant. How do you "dumb down" an art style, short of replacing everything with stick figures? Whatever. It's just that whenever I hear someone imply that games (or anything else) are made crappy and stupid to appeal to a larger audience I generally roll my eyes. It's such a snobby, elitist attitude. Making something simple and stupid doesn't guarantee that it will be more popular at all.
