I must say the feeling is definitely mutual. Conviction is one of those games I had reserved, being a fan of the series, that I will not be picking up. I will eventually pick it up but not at full price and most likely second-hand. Why? For the exact same reasons. Chaos Theory is also my favorite in the series and after that I have not seen that kind of SC game again. The series has started to become an action series and that's not what SC is. It's nothing like that. Double Agent was the first move and now Conviction is the same direction. Game might be amazing in its own right, but to me it isn't Splinter Cell anymore.
And I've been seeing this a lot with franchises. As I'm always harking back to, RE4 changed things. Cinematic action games started to pop out (despite that game not even being one). And it's really started to change and to me sometimes corrupt older franchises. Case in point with me was RE5. RE4 was a huge change from the original games, and I was okay with that because for the first time I felt like there was a really good and well-working RE game that stayed close enough to its roots to still feel nostalgic. However when RE5 came out it was a push too far. Instead I got a cinematic action game that seemed so distant to the originals that they could have used a new name and I would have never known it was RE.
And it has happened to other franchises as well, but it just seems everyone has to have this action-oriented gameplay to it with cinematic cutscenes. And for some games and genres that is great, but for others it isn't. They can be used, but not a centerpiece. And really they probably only do it as a marketing thing. Ever since call of duty 4, everyone is asking for these big cinematic like games and its forcing them to change old formulas to fit them. Usually it turns out to just be shock value rather than actual progress.
I have no issue with the new way of making games. I think many people like how it worked in such was as Call of Duty Modern Warfare or Uncharted 2. But not every game needs to be made like that. Some genres need evolutions in their gameplay, or even revolutions. But they need it in different ways with different attributes. Nor should we just kill off the old way of gaming. Adaptation not genocide. Guess everyone is always focusing on Wii killing gaming, but I think this whole "movie-like" experience phenomenon is one that has a better shot of killing some great old-school ways of playing.
