This is the big problem of computer/console games now, the story or genre of the game doesn't matter as much as the way it's all executed. Sandbox games can and do work but the execs who give out the money don't believe the public wants them.
The latest thinking is that everyone wants to play a multiplayer online first person shooter that is player-vs-player, linear and has lots of cinematic cut-scenes. They forget that games like Sacred and Sacred 2, Fallout 3, Skyrim and so on have been very succesful. It also, surprise surprise, turns out to be cheaper to make player-vs-player games because you don't have to develop as much content.
You could make a Cold War game tomorrow, give it some advertising and it will definitely sell but then you encounter the second problem of computer gaming. "Every" computer gamer thinks that they should play every single game that comes onto the market irrespective of whether it's to their tastes or not. When it turns out they don't like the game because it isn't in a genre they like, they're the first onto the internet to bitch about it. If you were a car racing fan who liked drag races and not the Indy 500, you just wouldn't bother to go to the Indy 500 - not so with computer gamers :-(
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