Wow, really no love for Deus Ex huh? I'm starting to think that might be one of the most overlooked/underrated games... ever.
Nah, probably just many dissapointed fans of the original DE. Eidos/Ion Storm have done precisely what Bethesda have done... Streamlined? (simplified) for the masses. Taken away features that made earlier games so good for me and others.
In my opinion they've both sold out to develop games for platforms they weren't designing games for originally. And this is undeniably at some cost for the PC gamer.
Am I bitter? Yes a bit, I won't deny it. Do I blame them? Given that they're a business, I understand their motivations. Given that they were PC gamers back in the day though, yes I do blame them for what we've ended up with in 2011.
Some folks rubbish the 'Streamlining? phenomenon as 'rose tinted glasses' and 'all in your head' but it isn't. The fact is games are changing to be more appealing, more of the time to more people. These changes
always come at a cost to some people (like myself), I just don't enjoy them as much as previous offerings from the same developer. Bethesda save themselves from a lot of comtempt by releasing such great modding tools however. This is why I know Skyrim will be a top game someday.
I voted for Dark Souls, perhaps because in my older age I prefer a rock hard challenge with extreme levels of risk/reward. I guess this is also the reason why I played Eve Online for years. Nothing on the market compares to either of these two games for me at the moment. I don't play Eve anymore, but I still think it's probably the greatest game ever made, for the reasons above. It's the best 'real life' simulator on the market and it's set in space!