I believe that the atmosphere, the subtle nuances in the game are what truly make MTW great and it is why all of us are still interested, still modding and still talking about it years after it's release.

To me RTW and M2TW went away from the full immersion and concentrated too much on being 'pretty' and this detracted from the feel of the game.

After all feeling you are part of the game, you are invested in the game not just watching it is why we play games instead of just watching DVD's or something.

I too started with STW and never grew sick of it and the same now remains true of MTW which I am still playing 90% of the time now.

I have sampled and had a go at 100's of games and STW and MTW remain firmly my favourites, unfortunately RTW and M2TW are nowhere near this.