I think one of the really unfortunate things that has risen is that theres this sense that the Product of Game Design is solved. People have spent a lot of money figuring out how many hoops people want to jump through and which aspects to borrow from which places.

Eats away at the heart of a game

Honestly I think the thing is that the RPG pastiche aspects (dungeons towns etc) helped a lot with making the world feel more populated and larger that it was. Ubisoft games just haven't done that sort of thing as much, typically they focus far more on exteriors than interiors.