Yeah, they could just C+P most of the models and shit, but Assassin's Creed being repetitive and having graphics being reused a fuck ton was pretty much already a huge complaint against the game in most every review, so maybe that wasn't the best example you could of given, given that adding more development time to add new stuff + new areas + new content to the game would of greatly helped it, instead of reusing more stuff.

But even reusing stuff (reskinning models, in most cases) still takes time + money, and its wayyy more time + wayyyyy more money than it was back then.

(and since it seems now and days most devs don't want to spend big money on new things (its risky), these new things wind up being short experiences. GoW and the like are short tho, they are short experiences, but give you reply value in their difficulty modes/costumes/etc.)

I actually had no problem whatsoever with the graphics being reused.  The cities are full of people; it'd be retarded to honestly expect them to have a level of variety substantially above what they already did.  However, working more types of missions and a larger range of content into the game, while taking some time, wouldn't really require original graphics.  In fact, this is precisely why I cited Assassin's Creed to begin with.  It's an example of a game with a dire lack of content variety that, without much trouble, could've had much more, with virtually no need to implement new environments or models at all, because the other missions would take place in the same area that the rest of the game does.  Would this take more time?  Certainly, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as time consuming as building completely new cities and models from the ground up would, as you seem to be implying is necessary (it's not).  Repetitive gameplay and standardized visuals aren't necessarily related.

Also, not too sure I agree that it's wayyyyyyyyyyyy more time and money to... what?  Code an event?  I know absolutely nothing about programming, so I could easily just be missing something about the development process, but the most significant difference between console generations are the visuals.  Assuming you're just reusing them, why is programming an event on the Xbox 360 wayyyyyyyyyyy more time-consuming and expensive than it was on the Xbox, exactly?  What about the fundamental differences between the languages the development kits use would make, assuming you already had the visuals made and ready to go from other parts of your game, the coding of content that much longer and more expensive of a process?

Like I said earlier, getting 70 stars (the bare minimum) in Mario 64 would take you 10 or 12 hours but finding all 120 doubles that time but if Nintendo forced you to get all 120 stars to fight Bowser I guarantee you more people would have gotten annoyed with the game quickly.  Artificially adding filler to the main story of a game is more annoying than creating achievements or side quests to lengthen it.  If you want to play through games that force you to backtrack and do random bullshit just so you can "wow this game is long" then good for you but I rather have multiplayer or unlockables to find than bog down a good story or ruin the pacing of a game just so I can justify spending 60$ on a hobby.

Marcus, are you really this stupid?  Where did anyone say anything even close to "NOT ENOUGH FILLER."  The problem is NOT ENOUGH CONTENT.  It's like you have this victimized perspective of gaming that makes you seriously believe that if a game isn't incredibly short, it needs to be 50% filler.  Filler does not equate with legitimate content, but on the other hand, neither do fucking ACHIEVEMENTS are you kidding me.  Do you idiots really think MORE COSTUMES YESS ANOTHER REASON TO PLAY is an acceptable replacement for actual content?  Side quests are okay in premise, but most of the time they themselves are just another form of filler, and even worse because there's not even a pretense of pertinence to the main story.  Basically, I'm saying you seem to have this awful misconception that a game that lacks content and is too brief and rushed because anything longer would be too expensive would have it's good [bad] story and [rushed] pacing "bogged down" by the presence of more content.  I think you're missing the fact that I'm saying length ties in with content (not unlocking costumes, sorry), not just being long for the sake of being long.

This is exactly why I'm sort of disappointed in this generation.  No one seems to mind the adverse effect it has on virtually all games.  Someone JUST SAID that developers are even more unwilling than ever to take risks because of the exorbitant costs that making a game for a modern console entails, and that as a result most of the games they do make (even relatively safe ones; you can hardly call Gears of War an adventurous title) are on the short side.  No one wants to sink time into designing an acceptable amount of content because it's so ridiculously expensive that they just can't justify the risk, so what we get are more expensive games with less content because hey, this shit's expensive!  Great, thanks, this is totally worth seeing Altair's cape flow so fluidly while he runs across buildings.  When the graphic capabilities of your console become so expensive that they begin to seriously limit what developers can do in terms of content and length with their games, you've got a problem.

Okay, but AC definitely already reused both textures and models to a pretty heavy degree.  Not only did all guards basically look the same, but there were only like five to ten basic types of people.  Not really seeing how that applies here!  Also, in a platformer-type game, where there are usually basic archetypes of enemies, it probably wouldn't pose much of a problem either.  And in a lot of these cases, I feel like more creativity during level design would've lead to players having more shit to do, and not just in a "okay, backtrack and get this cog to open this door" type of way.  I don't understand how what would amount to, in many cases, ADDING MORE GENERIC GOONS would really require much more effort on the part of the people in charge of making visuals.  I sincerely doubt that what I'm talking about would mean they'd have to build a ton of shit (models, textures, whatever) from scratch.