What makes a game great is 100% (STRESS THAT) dependent on the perspective of the player, his/her goals in playing the game, and what he/she wants from it in the end. Me? I've explained plenty of times before that I prefer 3-D fighter gameplay. I was never particularly (read: any) good at 2D fighters of any kind. Had to play MK2/3 on very easy back in the day. Plus I still get my ass handed to me regularly at Street Fighter by the medium computer player and EVERY human player.
Whatever you say about the balance amongst skilled players has little application to the fan-base at large. And I can see this arguement as a perfect small-scale case of the casual vs. the pro mindset. By arguing the balance and the tricks, the infinites, and the broken characters/combos, you
assume the player can actually PULL THOSE OFF. Tim, Angel, you're both clearly in the mindset that the worth of these kinds of games can only be properly judged at the tournament level of play. Where-as Kurtis here (he likes Stryker, that should tell you something about him), is obviously of the uninformed masses (little offense).
Tim here likes to play to win, he's an avid reader of Sirlin's philosophy (which I starkly disagree with on almost every level), and he likes to examine tiers and top-level players and really get to know these games.
Then there's Stryker here. I called him "casual" up above but I want it to be known that I don't mean him to be casual as in Wii-Fit casual. I mean casual in that he isn't going to put in the effort to get to the top of his game. I consider myself to be a VERY hardcore gamer, it's my life, it's what I do, I play more games than anybody I know and I'm onto the next one every couple of weeks (or sooner, depending). But I never stay on any one title long enough to be "that good". And it is that difference in goals and playstyles that distances players like me from Tim philosophically and as game critics.
My personal favorite MK games are, in this order, MKII, MKM, MKDA, MKD. Why is that? Not because of the balance I'll tell you that. It's because of the characters, the stories, the look and feel, the narration (in the case of MKM), and the content (in the case of the latter two). If I wanted to play a game with the purpose in mind of purely sport then I would play something I'm better at, and that's clearly not ANY Mortal Kombat game.
I play Soul Calibur 4, and I'm much better at it that I usually am at fighters. I trained to get better, I practiced with 2 or 3 characters and got really good with them. I played to win (in my own way) and it was enjoyable. But it was with a different goal in mind. SC4 didn't have a very good story, the endings sucked, and I didn't even understand the premise properly as I did the others. But I enjoyed the FIGHTING so much, that I kept playing for more than 80 hours. Considerably longer than average. Longer even than I spent on Kingdom Hearts 2 fully completing Jiminy's Journal (70 hours).
Now let's look at that in contrast with MKDA or MKD. I don't particularly like the fighting engine in these games either. Though it is visually appealing and the multiple fighting styles are done very well, the game is unbalanced and like most fighters I never got the proper hang of it. Onaga frustrated me to no end, never learned to beat him properly. But even though I caused myself physical harm working through the immense frustration that it took to do it, I still unlocked every bio, ending, character, costume, and extra in every Krypt Koffin I could see. And in the case of Deception I did that THREE TIMES. Why? Not because I loved the fighting, because I loved the WORLD, the STORY, the CHARACTERS, the NARRATION. Everything that Tim ignores. Everything he says DOESN'T make MKDA or MKD "better games". And don't try to deny it Tim, you said it plain as day right here:
Extra content is great.....especially when the actual product is decent, but all that extra stuff doesnt make the game better, no.
If that stuff truly doesn't make a better game, then why the hell did I keep playing? Because I'm masochistic? ....maybe.