Some people don't want or enjoy overly-simplified combat mechanics that make them think of video games instead of D&D mythical combat; or the feeling of classes being overly homogenized--like what Blizzard just did in the recent patch to wow--like what some have felt has occured with 4E. Less detailed options. Less mechanical rules to make it easier to *construct* choices, options, pathways, character designs that feel distinctly different from every other NTH lvl *fighter* out there, and so on.
Video Games make everything more simplified, more homogenized, with inherently less detail, less options, less mechanics, less *customization* ability, than a traditional PNP RPG.
I think its pretty difficult to make the case that 4e combat is simplified from 3e and lacking in options. It's more tactically rich than any other edition. 3e had a fairly limited set of options and they typically involved clunky mechanics that nearly always required book reference and the options were quite sub-par mechanically unless a melee character specialized in them with a number of feats (the spiked chain trip fighter, or a disarm build, e.g.). Simplified is the wrong word for what 4e did with combat. They streamlined it, did away with clunky subsystems to make combats run smoother. But options aren't taken away or denied and the mechanical advantages of fighting tactically are stronger than ever. 4e has in system support for doing just about anything in combat.
Like always, a good DM can wing it and improvise, and plenty of that went on with 3e, but 4e builds unlimited options into the combat system in a similar way to how 3e made near limitless class combinations possible. The major difference is that 4es options remain mechanically viable across the board.
Which leads us to the homogenization issue. To say this comes from WoW or other video games is putting the cart before the horse. Homogenization of character powers grows out of the design choice of seeking to achieve a balance between the available classes. This hasn't often been a true goal of class design in many class-based systems of the past. It certainly wasn't a primary goal for single player RPG video games. The goal of class design was to make sure that all available classes could complete the game, more or less, but not that they were in harmonious balance with each other. With MMOs, class balance became a primary design goal out of necessity. Player's complained if their chosen class was weaker than another class, especially if it was at their own schtick. PvP necessitated even stricter balance as classes often came into direct conflict and if class x can always beat class y then you've got a problem.
Some tabletop RPGs, and some d20 3PP have been built around the idea of bringing better class balance to tabletop RPGs. It is a design choice. But it is not a design goal or implementation that arose from the video game format. It is the answer to a design problem, in either medium. The way to achieve actual class balance is to homogenize, to some degree, all classes. Put class abilities on the same framework, differentiate them by role, effect, flavor, etc., and balance is easy to achieve and easy to adjust as players find loopholes and exploits or new products or patches clash with old.
The 4e designers made a choice that class balance was something that this edition should focus on based on feedback from 3e, where one of the major complaints was the power disparity at middle-high levels between melee classes and the caster classes.
Now, I certainly understand some players disagreeing with the design choice or not liking the power structure or any number of other complaints. It's just that saying this aspect of 4e came from video games is short sighted and due to the posters own familiarity with games like WoW. And that's only valid to a certain extent. Because of WoW, we talked a friend into joining our 3e game a few years ago. He had never played a tabletop RPG. When we were introducing the concepts to him, he found them easily idenfitifiable because they were "just like WoW". The concepts I am talking about were things like hit points, levels, class choices, spells and spell levels. For a long time, everything he did in D&D he related to WoW and used WoW's terminology. This was simply because that is where he first encountered these concepts. The "new" thing to him was roleplaying, which he did not do in WoW, but found both a knack and love for it, to the point where he moved to a roleplaying server in WoW to RP in that environment.
It's understandble why some would say that D&D having achieved actual class balance for the first time, despite the lip service paid to it as a design goal over the years, would see it as something coming from WoW or other MMOs as that is where they would be familiar with the framework that makes it possible. But there are tabletop systems that utilized such homegenization years ago to achieve such balance, so it isn't something that video games invented and 4e borrowed.
Just for the record, I am of the position that there is nothing wrong, and indeed it is great, with various mediums influencing one another. I like cinematic and literary elements in my game, and my own extensive playing of WoW has had, in my view, a very positive impact on some aspects of my DMing.
What I have a minor problem with is the short-sightedness of attributing a trait to something just because its what you are most recently familiar with. Designing for class balance has been around for many years and homogenization is one way it is achieved, whether in a tabletop or video game.
