We will have to agree to disagree at this point. There were games that were made along side D&D ones, that were better received than them, that were terrible writing. Oblivions story, tbh felt like it was put together by an 8yr old. NWN was executed well. BG was also executed well, especially for its time. BG2 wasn't bad, wasn't great but was enjoyable.
As far as DC goes, DC sucks tbh. They don't have very many good heroes, and their alter egos aren't great at being relatable. That's why Marvel is so much more appealing. Stan Lee made the alter Egos more relatable. How many of us nerds were Peter Parker? That is also why Spiderman specifically did well, a lot the villains were relatable too. People that werent so bad, just took a wrong turn or made a bad decision somewhere. Doc Conner, Harry Osborne, Felicia Hardy, Eddy Brock, all of them aren't that bad.
DC is great at making villains relatable, but its heroes, not so much. Superman is terrible. Some Jesus figure, that none of us can relate to. Smallville is the only Clark Kent that was really relatable, and well Dean Kane did a decent job in Lois in Clark. The opposite Captain America was someone we wanted to be, we could never be Superman tho. Batman and Catwoman are our anger at the system and our frustrations turned vigilante. Wonder Woman is also not relatable at all. The CW made DC have relatable alter egos, and that's where DC hit a stride. This is all my feelings on it, but a lot of people agree. Marvel has better heroes, DC has better villains. Spiderman is what happens if DC and Marvel have a baby. Hence why its prolly the most popular solo franchise of the comic book industry.
Again, I think you are missing the full picture. Oblivion was a success because of its fanbase from Morrowind but also because it set the trend of a "living breathing world". Bethesda tried to make the NPCs more alive (with some hilarious outcomes) but Oblivion was the start of trying to change a static world. It was fresh and different from the same ole same ole. And never underestimate the power of mods. Diablo series hit lightning in a bottle by essentially creating a rogue-lite game with graphics which now is commonplace. But Blizzard is great at taking existing systems and polishing it up; just look at Warcraft/Starcraft and WoW both of whom were copies of older games.
Marvel has Fantastic Four and all the movies sucked. The original Superman with Christopher Reeves did great. It's not necessarily about the characters. It's how it is implemented and executed. A lot of D&D computer games of recent years have not met expectations because they weren't executed well.
