While I'm completely unrelated to this discussion, I've got to disagree on a couple of previous points.
Firstly, The City of Heroes storyline has loose ties with the "real" world, especially regarding World War II, though I emphasize the word "loose".
Secondly, using the "real" world as a standard to which a compelling story or world is compared to completely defeats the purpose of video games in general. People play video games to explore new worlds, new possibilities. While a number of people are content to see a rehash of reality, many more people want to immerse themselves in a totally new world, something that takes real effort.
If you want to claim it's difficult for a totally fictional work to bring in a loyal audience, millions of creative minds, and their fans, would like to have a word with you. Not everyone wants the latest retake on World War II. I know I got bored with it six million times ago.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
