This is the exact question posed by Keith Stuart of The Guardian Gameblog, citing Fable (curiously, considering he is pretty adament that Fable had little to do with Molyneux), Doom 3 (odd that the same man that argues that Molyneux was not the designer of Fable would blame Carmack for Doom 3's design considering that, you know, Carmack's not a game designer) and Deus Ex: Invisible War as examples of disappointments from idolized game designers.

Otherwise, I find the article a bit obvious. Being a game designer is a creative endeavor and, like all artists, some output will fail to be as evocative, indentifiable or even enjoyable as earlier works. Similarly, not all artists and game designers are creative geniuses - some will produce nothing more than the equivalent of their 'fictional auto-biographical first novel' and then fade away. I honestly don't see why the world of game design should be any different than other artistic mediums? Perhaps this issue rising to the top of public consciousness at this time is indicative of how the gaming industry is maturing, that we're demanding more from our triple AAA, cream-of-the-crop, hyped-for-years titles. Or maybe we've just aged to the point where the gamers (and gaming journalism) loves to tear down its heros, to lambast them for every mistake, for every trip-up and failed experiment. What'll be next? I see in G4's future the gaming equivalent of Trio's Flops.