What worse for franchise: tiny upgrade, deviation, dumb down, "inbreeding"?

[Jaos]

richardhutnik said:

Jaos said:

What's wrong with tiny upgrades, if they're there? Provided the game is any good to begin with, that's the way to go.

Also, as long as the original game series isn't abandoned, an additional well thought out spin off is ok. If you'd always reject that, you couldn't play Mario Kart or Paper Mario.

If you can roll it out as DLC, why not go that route?  The issue is that, if it is an expansion pack type game, and they release it for full price, is it worth the money? 

I think opinions vary too much on what an expansion type game is, considering how much SMG2 was called that. Also, I'm not very keen on DLC, it often feels like it should have been included in the price in the first place.