Mercurius
Legend
What are your thoughts? Did 4E hit exactly the right level of fantastic-ness? Too much? Too little, even? Does this really matter to 4E's long-term success? Is 4E even likely to meaningfully expand D&D's market anyway, I guess is perhaps another valid question. I wonder perhaps if there's room for a more human and grounded, but equally playable fantasy RPG out there. I think 4E's general rules design makes it wildly more capable of getting new players in and having fun than other RPGs (including 3.5E, Pathfinder, Runequest etc.), but just as much I wonder if the setting is helping or hurting.
The "right level" in terms of what? Personal tastes? Aesthetically? Market potential?
The answer to all of the above is "I'm not sure yet." Personally I don't really dig Dragonborn and Tieflings, but this is not to say I don't like "out there fantasy"--I love Talislanta, for example. I just find Dragonborn and Tieflings to be more "kewl" than "cool" in that they seem like they were designed more in terms of ass-kicking than as artistic fantasy creations. Contrast this to Talislanta in which every race was designed without "game balance" in mind, so that you have a wide range of power levels in terms of race. Each race was designed because it was interesting, not because it would be kewl to play as a player character. Tieflings and Dragonborn, imo, while not being totally aesthetically offensive, are still one step away from a laser gun in one hand, a sword in the other. This, to me, is where D&D has stepped a bit too far into video game land.
But it sounds like your query is specific to marketability, especially with regards to bringing in new players. Being a semi-grognard it is hard for me to say. I don't play World of Warcraft or any video games, so I am coming at D&D more from a fantasy story angle than a video game one. So I could see it going either way: 4ed could be successful because it appeals to a younger generation, or it could fail (at least compared to the impact of 3ed) because it distances old diehards. What I fear for WotC is that a large portion of "on the fencers" will return to 3ed after the novelty of a new rules set wears off. But this may be unjustified and only time will tell.
Personally speaking I would have preferred if PHB 1 was more traditional, with only slight adjustments on the usual array of races and classes and with a PHB 2 including more "exotic" races and classes, perhaps coming out sooner than later (say, six months after 1) so that WotC could still showcase their "new look". This way you start out with the core D&D we all know and love, and then can add-on and adapt it however you want (which you can do anyways, but I'm speaking in terms of WotC supports).
Overall I think 4ed will succeed in that it will be popular, perhaps even a tad more than 3ed, but it will fail in that it won't increase the game's popularity nearly to the degree that 3ed did. If you are Hasbro you might be a bit disappointed, because the point is always to increase profit, not just float on previous success. I'm not sure 4ed will do more than just continue the plateau established by 3ed.