Duke Nukem is a fine property and character, but not something that is going to be a comparative block buster in today's market which is dominated by casuals and the everyman, and has as a result brought with it large numbers of hyper-sensitive liberals (and this is not just a general bash here believe it or not). The point of Duke was more or less to be irreverent and do things that were "just plain wrong" within the veneer of him being a deliberately over
the top action hero. People got all upset about DNF because of the fact that it was sexist, over the top, and Duke while being portrayed as a hero, is an arrogant douchebag who has everything turning up roses for him, as opposed to being "called on it", being made to suffer for being a jerk, etc... basically the general attitude being from a large portion of the attitude is that the only way such a character should exist is if it's some variation on "Johnny Bravo". These attitudes of social justice, and the douchebag getting his, contrary to popular belief DID exist in the 80s, and when DNF came out. Part of the POINT of Duke is that he's exactly the guy who personality wise should "get his" except he's the protagonist, and a genuine hero, who as I said, always wins and has things turn out for the best. It's funny in part because of the sheer wrongness of the entire thing. If your offended by the idea of Duke being a macho jerk who has women all over him despite not always treating them the best, then really your kind of missing the point, and these games were never for you, you have the wrong kind of sense of humor if you think issues like "sexism" always have to be handled with deadpan seriousness all the time. Back in the day there were less gamers, the mainstream was hardly involved, and you could be irreverent and poke fun at the kinds of things Duke did in the way it did without people lighting up the torches and pitchforks because you were mocking a sacred cow and "real issues". Nowadays gaming has become so mainstream that you can only be irreverent when it's within permissive parameters (which is as contradictory as saying your free to be an Anarchist as long as you do it in a nice orderly manner).
The fact is that the DNF game wasn't all that well put together, and it needed better writing. That said the property has a future as long as it's released with the understanding that it's a niche product. Done correctly DNF should upset people with a deep, left wing agenda, who take sexism and similar issues way too seriously, Duke pretty much exists to mock people like that, if huge numbers of people aren't being offended by the content when it becomes known, then it's being done wrong. Of course developers also need to understand that they will have to be ready to take the flak because unlike the old days more people will notice.
