I completely agree.

I believe lore is what gives me a reason to care about a game. Take games like City of Heroes or Champions for example. I don't really care if Millennium City gets taken or if this random Super Villain is trying to kill us all. I would care if it was something I knew. I would care if it was Magneto trying to kill us all. I would care if it was Metropolis getting assaulted.

Familiar lore is what keeps me playing games like WoW, but not making me want to play games like Aion. If someone could make a great world behind the game and not just flashy avatars with a neat fighting system, I could give it a shot. The lore behind games like Eve, for example, keep me hooked into it and keep me playing.

Lore doesn't necessarily make a game, but it can slowly break it.