It's quite difficult to compare older, complete games, softened by nostalgic feelings and the usual partial forgetfulness, with what we get from an EA and a short trailer.
Wether Simmons is good as villain or not is to a great extent personal taste, but the data base to judge about this should be a bit bigger than that trailer. I don't see a need for celebrities in video games but for me his performance as Ketheric is ok so far. I can connect the voice with the person shown. Religious fanatics, which for me Ketheric is, are usually not very subtle and nuanced people and should not be shown as such.
The trailer as a whole is quite bad in my opinion. Without having played the EA, how can you even construct a notion about what the game is about? A bit less movement and particles and fast cutscenes and a bit more talking would have been better. I got the feeling as if it was made of parts developed by several teams without much coordination and mixed 5 minutes before release. It's maybe not the intention of the trailer to inform about the greater game structure, but what is the intention? Just to place the name of Simmons and a calender date? Well done then.
