I started a thread on the bluroom with a similar theme, and with H4 and Blops 2 now out, and with BF3 out and well tested, I think the question should be raised again.

It appears classes/perks/unlocks etc have now completely taken over. I assume when companies hire people to be in charge of "player investment" or whatever euphemism they go for these days, what it means is that they want to find the best way of getting players to stay through unlocking shiny shit.

Now, before I show my total bias, and before anyone thinks that I can't see some merit to the idea of classes and unlocks: BFBC2 did it brilliantly, and was the closest I've seen to perfection as far as classes and large scale MP goes. A lot of things that don't work in other games work in it. JiP, and classes being the obvious. But even the unlocks are genius, because the guns are well enough balanced so that even after you unlock all the guns, you quite often end up back at your first gun or one of the early unlocks. Anyhoo, as I understand it, BF3 has not built on BFBC2's tradition.

H4 has sold it's soul. Blops 2 sounds like it has some new ideas, but it's still CoD.

All reports of Bungie's next effort sound like - regardless of other innovation - there'll be plenty of grinding and unlocking.

I ask again: Where next for the online FPS? Can anything bring something new to the table? Is there a company/personality big enough to come out and try the PR stunt of calling all of this grinding/perk based stuff outright crap and try and sell something on stripped back gameplay?