I used to love sequels. LOVE them. Back in the day, I couldn't wait for sequels of my favourite games to come out because it meant even more hours of unmitigated awesome. Things would go something like this:

1. Street Fighter II is awesome! I want more! Yes! Street Fighter II Turbo!
2. Street Fighter II Turbo is awesome! I want more! Yes! Super Street Fighter II!
3. Super Street Fighter II is awesome! I want more! Yes! Super Street Fighter II Turbo!

Or like this:

1. Mega Man is awesome! I want more! Yes! Mega Man 2!
2. Mega Man 2 is awesome! I want more! Yes! Mega Man 3!
3. And so on for Mega Mans 4 through 6.

I still love sequels. I still do. But these days I find that each game has so much content that by the time I get to the sequel, I still feel burned out from the first game. I wind up dropping the sequel much sooner than I would have hoped.

Things these days seem to be going like this:

1. Street Fighter IV is awesome! I want more! Yes! Super Street Fighter IV!
2. Super Street Fighter IV is awesome, but, but I hardly got a handle on the first 25 characters from over 115 hours of Street Fighter IV… I'm actually... I'm actually kind of tired of this right now. These new characters are weird. I should have played more Street Fighter III when it came out. Crap. I'll come back to this later. I'll just play a bit of Minotaur China Shop…

Or:

1. DJ Hero is awesome! I want more! Yes! DJ Hero 2!
2. DJ Hero 2 is awesome, but I've already scratched this turntable for hours… I've… I've kinda played this thing out… And my wrists feel… wrong. Now what?
3. Minotaur China Shop?

I find this has been the case for several games, mostly fighters, I've bought in the past couple of years: Virtua Fighter 5, Tekken 6, SoulCalibur IV (and SoulCalibur Broken Destiny), Super Street Fighter IV, DJ Hero 2. Even games like 3D Dot Game Heroes or Torchlight that borrow heavily from old games I feel like I've played out before I even finish them.

What gives? Another sign that I'm getting old and crotchety? (The evidence is mounting.) Or are games becoming so jam-packed as to promote burnout before the sequel arrives?

This might not bode well, considering that most of the games I currently have on my wishlist (e.g. Portal 2, Batman: Arkham City, StarCraft II, Bioshock 2, Puzzle Quest 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3) are sequels.