The most critical members of the PC gaming public have to be sports gamers. Of this, there can be absolutely, positively no doubt. Give them great eye candy and arcade action and they'll demand a sim with depth.
Nobody ever seems to be satisfied.
Of course, quite often this lack of satisfaction is warranted. In the case of football games, for example. Football Pro was the first to fall from grace, making a shaky transition to Windows 95 that it has never fully recovered from. The Madden line from EA Sports didn't show up at all one year, and left a lot of people unimpressed in both the '97 and '98 editions. Don't even go there.