I think it works in a cycle.
1 - Around September, October, mostly all of us are super excited for it.
2 - Right before release, the excitement reaches fever pitch.
3 - The game comes out, and it's this euphoric moment! Everyone is super happy!
4 - There is the honeymoon phase where everything great about the game is all we think and talk about, and a lot of the things that the game doesn't do so well kind of gets overlooked and ignored and passed on as "something they will patch/fix" etc
5 - That honeymoon period lasts anywhere from 3 weeks to 2 months, depending on who you are and how big of a CoD fan you are. And then it changes, and you become critical; start focusing on the things that the game didn't do well - things that you've chosen to ignore or overlook up until now.
6 - Around March time, you are pretty fed up with it - you still have (a lot) of fun playing it, but now it's all about what the game got wrong. At this point, the community is pretty ruthless in it's criticism
7 - That ruthless criticism turns into one of two things: a) downright anger at the developer/game/etc, and/or b) flatout apathy for anything related to the game moving forward.
8 - News of the next CoD comes out, and either because you are frustrated or you don't care, you tend to not put too much stock into it
9 - The hype matchine builds up over the spring, heading into the summer, and you gradually become more and more excited about the newest CoD. Once you hear about the new features, you are set in your belief that this game will be the one that improves the series.
10 - Around September, October, mostly all of us are super excited for it.
1,833 posts since 
