The reason I stated that I dislike EA Sports games is because I've played them, as have many of my hardcore gamer friends.

You never said that in your original post. You simply made the reference that people

continue to buy EA's lousy sports games

. Like I said in my post, you and your harcore gamer friends may not like the EA sports titles (though you seem to have softened your position on them a bit), but that doesn't make them lousy games. You have to admit that calling EA sports games lousy is, as I said, a really dumb statement and is certainly not a fact as you seem to put it.

If you look around, you'll see very few sites willing to really take a stab at EA games.

I really don't buy this. It is possible, but the idea that low revenue (and that's what pretty much every website is) sites would bow to a publisher for no reason is ridiculous. Again, the numbers may not gel with your opinion, but that does not mean that the sites are kowtowing to EA.

Well, almost no one here agrees that Enter the Matrix was a good game, but that sold didn't it?

This is irrelevant. I am talking about EA sports titles. But God help us if they make another one of those games...

Will people buy the next NHL and NFL games despite that they're paying $50 just to get an updated team roster and slightly improved engine?

I think that is the nature of sports games rather than a lack of innovation. You cannot really "reinvent" or "innovate" too much in a sports game. It is simulating something from real life, not making it's own story, environment, creatures, etc. A great number of people simply want to play with updated rosters and stats. Who really wants to play with last years players? It would be nice to have a $10 roster expansion, but EA makes enough changes year to year to force an upgrade.

I don't know anything about Tomb Raider, so I am not taking issue with those comments. But your bashing of EA sports titles is unfounded. There have been plenty of games that I didn't like, but realised they were good games (Freedom Fighters comes immediately to mind, along with FF XI or whatever the online one was called). Well made, good technical elements, received well by reviewers and other gamers, but just not my thing. Are EA sports games not your thing? Maybe. Are EA sports games lousy? Definately not.