--about the violence aspect--
the average shooter: kill all to achieve your goals.
hitman series: you're a contract killer and earn money with the job. you even got to think a lot.

the average shooter gets usk 16. hitman has been on the german index for the concept, though you kill ~50 more people per level in an average shooter. thinking about this, i feel there is something wrong. who is good and who is evil?

--game concepts--
a space station is always a space station and a mage is a mage, true. but i've never seen a mage in a space station (star wars doesn't count as mages), so there are still stories to be told: the combination of elements counts.

why do you think "mensch ärgere dich nicht", chess, quake3arena and poker are still played today? board and card games are abstract enough to make the player use his imagination, most of the game is running beside the actual game: it is the human opponent factor that makes them interesting. the same is for q3a, counterstrike etc: it does not count if the graphics is 10 years beyond our time, it is the conscience of playing with humans. such games never age. for cs it's unimporant who's good or evil, so is for ball games.

@frank: yes, indeed. because snapping for heads was so much fun at least for me