Well as I just bought 6 expansion packs I would say: hell no! But I have to agree with you. I played sims 2 and 3. Not obsessively but I remember playing them and I was rather confused when I went to research which packs were good to buy as they were on sale and read and saw everywhere I had to buy Seasons to complete my game. I hadn't even noticed that pack and never would have bought it if I hadn't researched the packs. After buying and installing it I understood immediately why everyone recommended that pack because as everyone said "the world comes to life". But I wanted more than just what Seasons added. I definitely wanted Get Famous no matter what the commentary on that pack was. It's my play style as I don't care for family building. After buying that one I understood why it's not the best rated pack, stuff was still missing for my play style. I had to by like 3 expansions packs to be able to play Get famous as it should be. When I also bought Eco Lifestyle and noticed that suddenly my telephone was displaying my telephone messages like it should be in the base game I started to understand the sentiment about cash grabs. I bought all the packs at 50% off but it still feels expensive for what you get. There are so much mechanics that makes a sim game that are spread over multiple packs that I understand why I shelved the game 3 years ago after playing only a few hours to discover today you have to pay loads of money to actually enjoy the sims. I don't remember the sims being like that in previous versions. I liked the sims but didn't need multiple packs for that.
