So few people are willing to actually get into a game and understand what makes a 2-D fighter tick that everyone will write it off as something they'd already seen. You can't really have a 2-D fighting game anymore without a "gimmick" and people will judge the game based on what the gimmick is.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really work. It's almost impossible to argue that the best 2-D fighting game ever produced was Hyper Fighting. We've been going in the wrong direction ever since.

--Jay Snyder