I'm increasingly of the opinion that long shows are just a really bad idea.
The relentless visual onslaught is deadening, and despite the visuals being so good technically almost across the board, after awhile I find myself feeling that they don't have any real "wow" factor.
I suspect the problem is that as things get increasingly realistic, everything is inevitably going to end up looking somewhat samey. And with that, the formulaic nature of the games themselves really stands out.
It seems to me the things people reacted to most strongly were the ones where there's already an existing attachment to the characters or franchise.