I like Rome, its a great game, just lacks appeal. It takes a hardcore strategist to get into it all the time.
Doom3 was an eyecandy show.
HL2 was the same but with a worse storyline.
EA is chugging out games production line style, while they are graphically appealing, that's just to fool you into paying for a **** game. Their sports and racing games are the only thing they got going for them.
Ubi-Soft has got some semi decent games out there, but are anywhere from a good publisher.
I doubt Volition will get the chance to make another flight sim game. There just isn't a big enough market for it. They'd make more money from selling crap FPS's than a kickass Space sim.
Activision is publishing some decent games like Rome etc, but the Total War series is probably their only decent line of games.
More and more developers are going console too, because its generally easier to develop for, and provides a more secure market.
There arn't really any breakthrough games of late either the next generation of technology will be pushing photo realistic graphics, but gameplay wise things are just being rinsed out and repeated.
The best possible game at the moment would be purified games. Take a genre and purify all the key qualities. Halo almost had it, they could of done it in the sequel, but the push to the deadline shows in bungie's work.
MMORPG's like World of Warcraft look to be the future, but repaying for a game I bought already every three months just doesnt feel right...
