Yeah, it is disappointing. I think it's interesting to think about, though.
Leading into this generation, DMC was still very much considered a top tier title, a franchise that was hugely relevant for Sony in the generation prior. People were excited for DMC4 the way they were excited for all the new "AAA" sequels - the Metal Gears and Grand Theft Autos.
The most distinct shift in the market since then is that we've basically seen the birth of a much more effective "blockbuster game" - one that takes a surface theme and fully devotes itself to emulating it. Whereas Metal Gear Solid was once considered "cinematic", it is now a staggeringly VIDEO GAMEY game compared to the mechanics of what's considered a cinematic game today. Mechanics are now often contextual to the story they're trying to tell, or the environment the game is trying to put you in.
Whereas DMC once passed for a "game where you punch guys", it's now kind of this overly complicated set of systems that bear little resemblance to the notion of beating people up. Batman or Sleeping Dogs, meanwhile, do a far better job of selling the "fighting fantasy". Gamers who first and foremost wanted a "playable kung fu movie" now have much more accommodating alternatives.
I think the style of video games that still try to develop satisfying and rewarding underlying systems are becoming increasingly impossible to sell to a general audience, an audience whose interest in a game is based on context. The actions it ostensibly aims to emulate. It just doesn't make sense to large parts of the audience that you need button combinations when the point of the game is the end result - the punching of a thing. Looking at a trailer for a game, the trailer communicates why you should care about the character, and it establishes a role that the player gets to inhabit. At that point it's hard to explain why this BADASS ASSASSIN - or whatever the game entails - needs to memorise combos.
I have a friend that continually laments the fact that fighting games let you air juggle people, because it's not realistic. He wants clothes to rip, bruises to appear, more context sensitive actions in the environment, more spectacle. He's played fighting games since the mid 90s because they're his gateway to being in a kung fu movie, or perhaps being in a real fight, sans the bit where you lose and your face hurts.
It's a broad generalisation, and I hope that much is understood about my wrestling this entire topic - but today's most successful games are the ones that effectively sell power fantasies with broad, strong thematic context. Games where intent translates directly into actions, with little fuss. The divide between the games that fully commit to that, and the ones that merely drape their elaborate systems in surface context, has grown very tangible. Whereas the was overlap between the two when all games were very video gamey, now there's a distinct difference that I believe parts the audience.
I think it's inevitable as we move forward that the divide between systems driven and context driven games increases further. Padding your video gamey levels with X hours of cutscenes won't sell a VIDEO GAME to an audience that is sold on context. Or rather, it may perhaps sell, but not necessarily connect with them. I'm hoping companies behind this type of games realise this and stop trying to pit their franchises against the five mega hits that keep hogging the market, and in desperate attempts to inch nearer in sales sacrifice the essence of what their thing is *about*. When a game like Devil May Cry can get by on selling to the people that actually enjoy it on its own terms, we'll have a way cooler video game market.
And I sound like I harp on context driven games. I don't. I enjoy pretty much any type of game, I just think expectations on sales should change accordingly and that measures should be taken to accommodate those expectations.
