It's not that expectations are high. It's that the games would be outstanding if EA hadn't crappified them. Many of these games have very player-hostile elements designed purely to suck more money out of people.

Maybe it's just me, but for all people like to point out how expansion packs back in the day used to be bad, I don't remember ANYTHING on the level we're seeing with how aggressively they try to milk their customers at the expensive of the experience.