Another thing i'd like to bring up is combat. This seems like as good a place as any to raise the issue/idea into the harsh, judging eye of the public. It has come to my attention that what makes for stale combat is a one-button system where you point your character at the enemy and hit 'hey, batter batter batter! SWING!' until his head goes far enough for you to collect the three bits of treasure and make it back to the checkpoint. This is WoW combat, but you need to upkeep the fight by mashing the buttons. Sure, some try to variate the system by having you hit them at the right time, or by waiting for visual prompts, but it's still one button button mashing. It's playing with yourself, not with the enemy.
Three games stand out at kicking ass in style.
1) Kingdom Hearts 2: These guys make one-button combat good by adding in variants. Spells are so easy to fire it's literally pulling the damn trigger and touching a button, the feel of dynamic combat and face movement makes every fight mobile and hectic. The ability to jump high, chain premade combos and spit visual effects means you're never watching the exact same battle twice, as the landscape is almost never off limits, and tides of enemies are actually fun to decimate in style. Added to this are 'Reactions', a one button quicktime system, that becomes avaliable at certain times against certain foes for everything from ultra fast samurai quickdraw duels to riding rocket-foes like a screaming bulldozer through their buddies. Awesome.
2) God of war: What more can I say? Combo's are king, quicktime events are emplyed with flair and taste, made awesome by truly spectacular cinematic kill options and... yes... like KH2, hectic combat areas. You keep track of foes and gore and fun go everywhere and the enemies fall in droves. The challenge isn't in the foes so much as how you take them down.
3) Assassins Creed: Profiles, awesome. You have the standard selection of moves that only becomes avaliable whe you go to high profile, and variants of those moves only occur when you hold the button down, hit them at the right time, ect. it lacks mobility like KH or god of war, but has an in depth combat system that rewards the player with some visceral and smoothe cinema-kills.
My idea: Combine the three. Have basic movement abilities active when you go into Melee mode, with triggers activating a range of alternate moves, and situational quicktime events based on the enemy or even the environment. Have it hectic and fast, move swift between foes and tackle the fuckers. Kick, punch, rip off limbs. Speed and spectacle will make anything up close fun.
Say an enemy gaunt is bearing down on you. You could try to hit him, but perhaps while moving back guarding makes you drop onto your back, blowing the sucker to bits as he passes over you, before you roll to your feet. Quick and awesome as the gaunt corpse flies past the camera and the marine draws his chainsword again. Dismemberment is key, because a chainsaw DOES NOT BLUDGEON, RELIC!. Directional modifiers, held buttons for power attacks, and most imprtantly... the ability to switch between this and ranged quickly.
For ranged combat, I think a Gears of War style combat with less chest high walls will do the job. Make it more feasible to rush the foe, and have them rush you on occasion, but get us in the thick of it fast and furious. Have enemies burst from the ground, and clicking any button makes you stomp them or shoot them or slice them. If you don't react, let us fight them normally, but give the option for epic. Chain moves, let a trust become a bolter barrage to really fuck up some Chaos marine. We don't mind if it means each enemy is a littl easier to kill, plenty of games have shown that by having periodic boss mooks and smart enough mooks you can have fun as a superman.
TL;DR: Make it fast, make it pretty, don't have combat down time and reward the twitch addicts in us with optional quicktime events, ones unobtrusive and subtly cued, not with big ugly floating buttons, cues we need to learn and remember to use regularly.
I could write this stuff forever.