I been reading Video Game critique of the likes of PC Gamer and Game Informer and even made a review of a couple of games myself. Today, online on Xbox costs a subscription, and one way to piss people off is to make them pay what they were once used to getting for free.
And for the question. Games are harder today than before.
For example, the Original Sonic adventure for the dreamcast was easy, I got all A emblems. Sonic Heroes was difficult. And The secret rings was just plain hard. Mostly since the controls now suck.