One thing many people objected to was that 4E forced the meta-game too much.
I don't feel that's quite right. A meta-game is a game about the game - chargen/level-up CharOp is a meta-game, for instance, one you could 'win' before play even began. Imbalanced games generate meta-games that leverage (or, for that matter evade or correct) their imbalances, but even they don't quite 'force' them - incentivize them heavily the more profound the imbalance, sure, but not actually force them. 4e wasn't as imbalanced as other eds, so it's CharOp meta-game wasn't as incentivized, but it was certainly still present, and could still be fun.
4e was written in a clearer, more precise, jargon-filled technical-manual sort of way. It's play procedures were prettymuch naked in the harsh light of day. The lack of obfuscation might make it seem "more gamist" (itself a pretty absurd idea - "Waiter, my hamburger is too beefist!"), and I recall the "seeing the wires" complaint ringing true at the time. But, again, it's not forced, merely presented, and I don't think metagame is the right label, it's just the actual game, really.
Yes you could add fluff that says "you can't do X because you've already pulled that trick once and now they're expecting it". Bit of a stretch, but okay. But then you hit a completely different group of people who didn't see you do X.
Not, it makes a good rationale for a literal "encounter" power rather than a short-rest-recharge (which is what encounter powers actually were, and which 5e retains, even if 'short' is an hour).
So instead you say, "you only have enough energy to do that once in a while"
That works better for dailies, though it'd've worked even better if the mechanic were 'spend a surge' to use the power, rather than 1/day, but...
If they had come up with some other mechanic, maybe it would have been better. For example, if a fighter had stamina points and powers required so much stamina to use it would have been more palatable.
Nod. That'd be closely analogous to a 'spell point' mechanic - and those mechanics definitely had issues of their own - actually, more closely analogous to spell points than AEDU was to Vancian. ...hm...
One thing about the 4e approach is that it kept individual choices fewer and simpler than with casters in prior eds. When you leveled, if you got a new power, you chose from a relatively short list - there might be three, maybe 6, powers for your class & level to choose from in the PH, once you chose it, it was locked in until you retrained it (also something you did once/level). Compared to dead levels for some classes and far more involved choices every level (or two) for others, that's actually not so bad... for a new player, playing a character up from 1st, even pretty good. That consolidation & simplification, though, came at the price of making it less familiar, so, more overt.
When the "seeing the wires" presentation also made the system feel more overtly "in your face."
But powers were structured like spells, were "expended" like spells, in most cases had mystical effects. Obviously that didn't bother everyone.
Technically spells were structured like powers, powers, really /were/ a structure, a stat block for abilities (Class, Race, PC, NPC, Monster, & Magic Item - all used the power block format - another instance of consolidation that simplified the game relative to it's more complicated versions).
4e powers were not like traditional D&D spells: they weren't 'prepared' (well, except for the Wizards dailies & utilities, but they /were/ spells), weren't all daily, weren't organized in levels different from the levels at which you acquired them, you couldn't easily just take the same power twice (or more), you couldn't prep them (again, 'cept the Wizard's actual spells), nor cast them spontaneously, etc...
So, no, they were not structured like spells. It's an understandable misconception when coming from past editions, though, because of the limited-usage mechanic of daily powers, and because the power structure did have to handle spells. But, it's like saying that a 1e Two-handed sword was structured like an ability score, because you rolled it's damage vs L sized creatures on 3d6 - just focusing on one common point (in that case, wholly coincidental, of course).
Until essentials came out there wasn't really an option - just what felt like variations of the same chassis with different labels.
It may have felt, to you, like that, but it really wasn't - objectively, there was a lot more than labels (fluff) plugged into that chassis to make each class different, and, indeed, unique to a greater degree than before or since (in all other editions, casters use the same block-format and similar progressions for their spells, /and share many of the exact same spells/ on top of being able to prep or spontaneously spam the 'best' spells repeatedly, it created a much greater risk of 'sameyness' from caster to caster - and non-casters had virtually nothing to differentiate them from other members of the same class, until they got a cool magic item, anyway).
Again, it seems like a conflict between impressions formed in past experiences with new (at the time) the realities of a somewhat different system. I mean, D&D remained virtually unchanged for the first 25 years, and the next 8 after that 3.5 barely disturbed the sacred cows' meadow - then, 4e came through like Texas Chainsaw Sacred Cow Massacre. You're left going "were are all the cows...?" "Where's the Vancian Holstien?' "...hey, that cat & that Dalmatian over there are both black & white, they must be the Holstien..." "waitaminit, that zebra's black-and-white, too! ...So's the penguin! ...and the Killer Whale" "XOMG! they're all Holstiens!?!" "THEY'RE EXACTLY THE SAME!!! YOU'RE TEARING ME APPART!!!!!!"
I grew up with the vision of a fantasy world being one based on Tolkien, Leiber and Howard
But you adapted to D&D in spite of that!
Heroes in those stories may have gotten tired now and then, but they didn't need cool-down periods before they could do some cool trick again.
Yeah, including the spellcasters! Gandalf, Sheelba or Thulsa Doom didn't cast a spell once and then go "...oh, darn, hey, how did that go again?"
But you got past /that/, didn't you?
Though, caster or hero, they might make a supreme effort to accomplish something important - rather than making a supreme effort all the time, so there's /something/ (even if it's only drama) you use up and get back later when doing that sort of thing.
That cool trick may have only been possible under certain circumstances but if they weren't exhausted and the circumstances were met again they could do it all day long.
But circumstances wouldn't be met again, all day long - fiction has to make sense, afterall. So, functionally, limited-use is limited-use. How you model that in a game, though - because a player isn't going to feel the strain of making a supreme effort to leap across the room and cleave the Evil Sorcerer in half before he can finish his spell, if he has a 'cleave in half' power he can use all day, he's just going to cleave everything in his way in half.
