I don't agree with the games cited as examples for 6) Padding Game Length. I thought Elder Scroll: Oblivion had a brilliant world and traveling through it added to my gaming experience greatly and really brought the story to life, plus they gave you the option to quick-travel if you didn't like exploring. Maybe my experience with WoW has rendered me accustomed to fetch quests, but I thought the retrieve x from y quests in Oblivion weren't too repetitive, since the dungeons were genuinely interesting and well-designed, and always coupled with interesting stories and NPCs.

And again they mention it for 4) Make Combat Fun. Yeah, you fight rats while you're escaping a sewer prison. It's logical. Soon enough you'll graduate to demons, bandits and vampires. Wouldn't make sense to have you escaping the tutorial level, said sewer prison, with plate mail and a magical sword, fighting dragons, would it? Start off humble and earn your way to epic.