Well for starters, you put the very first basic reason into why this thread shouldn't been made in your OP.
Comparisons just CANNOT be drawn. Their aims are two completely different things. TEN YEARS APART! What kind of gratification will you be getting knowing that this user thinks that game X stands up well against game Y that proceeded it by two generations.
My opinion on the matter, if MGS was ever going to define genres and be hailed as the greatest of it's time, it would've done it potentially with MGS3, because beyond that (And I hope people can be honest enough to agree on this), the GAMEPLAY hasn't changed much at all since then. OoT on the other was AND IS the game that developers aspire to create great adventure games from. You've heard it from Capcom, you're heard it from Team Ico, you probably still hear it from loads of smaller devs. I just don't see developers right now looking at MGS4, and saying "Ok, this is what we need to do."
I FUCKING LOVE MGS4, so don't get me wrong (I can't stress this enough), but I think too many people are buying into all this horrible hype, and are just bandwagoning the thought of comparing it to the Game of the Forever to see what kind of reactions they can get. Why can't people just see MGS4 for it really is. A truely epic end to one of the best franchises of the last three generations.
