You hit the nail on the head. I worked at Eidos on Theif 1, was shipped to Boston to Looking Glass where they were also making System Shock 2 at the same time.

Eidos wanted to market Gangsters, which my friend was working on. I told marketing (All women, one gay guy, one asshole high up prick that drove porcshes, about 43, knew nothing of games and was porking the hottest marketing girl who was 23. What I am getting at here is that marketing had no clue what they were doing other than partying while we fucking slaved away!)

Uh hmm, I digress. I came back with the Gold copy of Thief and had for months said "Spend all your marketing dollars on Theif as this game is gonna be a hit!" The Gangsters team, who were my friends, came over and said in the meeting "Gangsters is terrible and will flop!"

What did Eidos do? Spent all their money on Gangsters, not one single page for Thief until after the game came out. Theif did sell well, by word of mouth.

Deus Ex had a bit more advertisement. System Shock 2 (EA) had zero advertisement.

So its not the games fault at all really. These games (SS2, Thief and DX) were all solid games that sold enough to make sequels. Imagine if they marketed them?

I equate it to MTV (which I hate). The only bands that "make it" are on MTV. Some suck too (Limp Bizkit) but because they are heavily advertised they seem bigger than they are and you want to jump on it.

Moral to the story:
No women in the game industry except at E3 and only if they are prostitutes and you want to let off steam.

Let QA and the developers choose what games to advertise.