For the benefit of those who aren't elderly nerds:
Back in 1993, id Software (yes, that's how it's capitalized) released Doom. While their previous game Wolfenstein 3D technically invented the FPS genre, Doom was the popular one that put shooters on the map. Both Wolfenstein and Doom were technical marvels thanks to the work of id programmer John Carmack, who figured out how to cheat a first person 3d environment on the abysmal hardware of the day (a lot of it is actually 2D images moving around a 3D space). A lot of the tech in your graphics hardware, game APIs, game engines, etc, can be traced back to the work of John Carmack.
People were blown away by the tech of Doom & Wolfenstein and the fact that the tech made possible a whole new category of games, so people kept talking about it. Head designer at id John Romero was understandably miffed that everyone was talking about Carmack and never his contribution to those games, and so he started a very public argument about design versus tech.
Now here's the thing: Romero's arguments were correct in my opinion. Good game design is more important than having the latest tech in your engine. Goodness knows Blizzard used to prove that with every game they released (we've yet to see if they will keep proving that after they got bought out). But Romero himself: the game designer famous for making these arguments isn't a very good game designer. He just isn't.
Ever since he left id, every game he works on takes a very long time to make, gets all hyped up, then lands with a thud.
This will be no different.
