[usrusr]

I wonder if it might have been more than that: maybe the problem wasn't games journalism repeating, but games journalism listening? Every piece of entertainment that is a multi-person effort has a little more thought put into it than visible on the surface (the opposite seems to be true for most solo art). That's nothing special. But when journalists start digging for more, trying to outdo each other in deep questions at interviews, the interviewee will be flattered and try to deliver more of that. Perhaps he would have continued doing well executed simple ideas if he never got that "the big ideas guy!" spotlight pointed at him. Remember how the matrix sequels felt like force-fed intellectual posturing? Same effect I think, inability to resist the flattery of attention, and as a consequence all the subtlety of "there might be more beneath just the explosions" gone.