Where is this 'waning' consumer interest? You can't support your own argument with generalisations made from thin air. I don't really think metacritic scores affect sales to the extent Pachter implies, marketing is a major factor, which explains why movies like Transformers 2 gain any profit. Mafia 2 has a decent marketing campaign on the go, and from my visit to major retailer Tesco earlier I see that it is being promoted well in stores. Personally I think Mafia 2 is a heavily underrated game with scores mainly based on its differences to GTA, which I feel are kind of missing the point, and was the same problem the original game faced.

Mafia II is a great game but it is lacking certain elements, for such a massive world, the lack of free-roam or non-linearity gameplay is the downfall. There are shops in the game which have really little to no use, you will never need to buy a weapon, change the plates of your car, tune your car up, etc.

The game needs more side missions.