Well, they are definitely making the games in a way to bring them to a wider audience. I'm pretty sure anyone making a real game would like to do that. Driver focuses on driving but it still got shooting in Driver 3 and Driver: PL. So perhaps shooting game fans bought those two games, and they liked them. As a result, they bought Driver: San Francisco too, even though it doesn't include on foot or shooting. And maybe they liked Driver: San Francisco as well. That's one more fan! What's wrong with it?
Games have always been easy, it's just that we, the players, have become better. It's not like every game is completely different and you need to learn how to play a game from scratch. Most stuff is the same and after years of gaming you can adapt to a game very quickly and easily beat it.
When I was small I thought how the first Driver was a really complex game, with so many missions, etc. And with really hard missions actually! But I beat it a few months ago, in a day or so. Even managed to pass the last mission at the first try!
And then I realised it's a pretty short game. Very easy and simple. It's basically nothing compared to Driver: Parallel Lines or Driver: San Francisco.
But it's not through easier gaming that they're aiming at a wider audience. It's through other stuff. For example: someone on Driver-Dimension once mentioned how he hates how in DSF they made the bad guys look ugly and the nice guys look good. He said this shows how the game aims at a very young crowd. Which is party true — it's a bit childish.
But on the other hand, the whole Driver: San Francisco story is very complex. I'm pretty sure most people don't even understand it. They just think of "Tanner shifting in a dream blabla unrealistic flying above cars" and that's it. But to explain it to you, what happens in the game is completely possible.
Before and after Tanner's coma, there is no shifting, nor boost or such things. Everything is the way it should be. As Tanner falls into his coma, he's brought into a hospital. The TV in the room is turned on (that's why it's shown at all) and everything that runs on the TV gets into Tanner's subconscious while he "dreams", because a coma is also a kind of dream. Various stuff that you hear around can get into your subconscious, for example if you're kind of lurking and watching TV, and somebody is talking to you. This is absolutely possible.
However, in his coma, Tanner thinks he's had a lucky escape. This is very complicated to figure out: in the mission after Tanner's coma, the Challenger is on a construction site. Without knowing the map (which is impossible when starting the game the first time) the player can't know that this construction site is just beside the little alley in which he got rammed by Jericho. Which means it's actually impossible for the player to know that Tanner's had a lucky escape at all (without researching), and by the way, I've only heard it being said by one person, and that was by Martin Edmondson (or was it Gareth?) in an early interview.
When Tanner shifts into other people, that's not really called shifting, it's called morphing. Every single thing that happens in a dream has a specific meaning about the one who dreams; it tells what's actually going on with this person… there is even sites that tell you that.
Let's take the main theme of Driver: chases. What do chases mean? Let's look on dreammooods:
http://dreammoods.com/cgibin/dreamdicti ... arch=chase
Since Tanner is the one chasing here, this paragraph applies to this case:
To dream that you are chasing someone signifies that you are attempting to overcome a difficult goal or task. You may also be expressing some aggressive feelings toward others.
Tanner has a difficult goal or task, is that right? Yes it is. Does that quote above come from a Driver-related site? No, this quote is from professional scientists.
What I'm trying to say is that the story behind the game consists of some quite complex psychological happenings, which are and not just immature bullsh** as most people will think. I highly doubt that even 1% of players would know this. That's why I love reading those reviews about the game, I have to laugh really hard about the people who write them every time. If they just knew…
So to conclude, YES, the game does have some aspects that make it a game for younger people. But if you search the more complex side, I promise you, you will find it. I think it's good because it allows two completely different kinds of people to play the same game together, and I think if we'd be surrounded by the same kinds of people all the time, life would get pretty boring.
Perhaps you just need to look deeper into modern games, and maybe then you will find what you've been looking for?