This is it exactly! Very well put! And while in an ideal world one could have both horizontal and vertical ambition in one game, I am extremely skeptical this can be successfully pulled off.
Haha! Good question. Has there been a game like that already? I feel that if we get a game that isn't wide and shallow, or narrow and deep, no one will complaint, so it won't be acknowledged.
On the other hand, you create narrow but deep game and people will ask why it doesn't have X, Y and Z. Make a wide game, and people will complaint that X, Y and Z isn't deep enough, or doesn't gel with each other.
