Good advertisement won't do long term good job if there's not much to do in game. Ancient engine or graphics are not the case - Minecraft looks worse than Carmageddon released in 1997, yet it's extremely popular.
The difference is that in 2009-2010 this game had 4x more players
4x
characters. Real players count will remain unknown forever.
Still some clowns used "ded gaem" line back then as well. Nothing has changed, move along.