Thanks to dual-analog and its archaic (cheat) autoaim algorithm, most shooters are designed differently when they are made for consoles from their inception. Horizontal enemy patterns are much more common than vertical enemy patterns, for example (because of the way the analog stick dead zones work), and level design and enemy placement has to be thought of in a different way. Memory constraints play some part here, but lower resolution textures and more aggressive LoD along with an engine designed to stream aggressively from disk (as evidenced by the C1 port on consoles) can help out.
The economies of scale should allow most games to run their engines on everything from a Wii U (or even a Vita) to a Durango next gen, however if a game is designed for PC in its inception the level design, scale, and enemy placement/movement will probably differ quite a bit. The sooner controllers become less like a dual-shock and more like a Move/Wiimote/Mouse, as a default, the more parity we can have in design conception when making FPS games.
Did we play the same Crysis 2?
You must not forget that some of us choose to play most PC games using a gamepad as well. I was raised on mouse and keyboard and I love it, but when it comes time to game, I'd rather enjoy my PC games in a home theater setup using a gamepad than dealing with mouse and keyboard. There are ways to make it work but it is always less convenient and less comfortable.
I've had no problems re-playing older games such as Quake with a gamepad, however, and I don't feel that the change in design has ruined much of anything. I regularly spend time playing older PC games of my youth as well as more recent efforts (within the last 12 years) and I don't feel that all FPS games have changed for the worst.
In fact, the modern CoD formula was first introduced back in Medal of Honor Allied Assault for the PC which was WIDELY praised by PC gamers the world over. The success of PC games such as Half-Life and Allied Assault paved the way for the types of games that are now popular. On the flip side the popular Halo games on XBOX actually offered more nuanced fire fights with more strategy behind them. Actual aiming isn't everything. Removing auto-aim doesn't suddenly turn your game into a masterpiece. It detracts very little from the experience as far as I'm concerned.
Perhaps you did play a different Crysis 2 then. For me, I enjoyed it as a stealth action game that brought me back to older PC shooters that focused less on direct shooting and more on exploration. It was still far more open than your average PC shooter from the past 15 years. The levels were quite large and offered a lot of opportunities. The game was letdown a bit by poor AI, unfortunately, but the core design was very good.
As someone that has been playing FPS games since the early 90s I really feel that blaming the gamepad is a bit off base.
