I agree that the motion captured sprites added to the realism. There was something about those actors' expressions as they had there juggler sliced and then cut in half (ala Scorpion's MKII Fatality)....

I'm in favor of it, but it'd bet very difficult to them seeming realistic because they would have to make good costumes, things like Baraka's teeth being nails just wouldn't work anymore, and it'd be way difficult to move with an armour like Sub's, plus the actors should know the martial arts in question and be able to use the respective weapons.
I also want to note, that of the fighting games I know, Stryker and Link are really the kings of cheap.

You seem to be beating the Link/Stryker cheapness idea to death. Why do you say Stryker is so cheap?

And to stay on topic, yes, bring back 2d. Take UMK3 gameplay, make it tighter and deeper and release it at high res.

i say they should stay in 3d form and make a better fighting engine, going back to 2d and digitized characters would suck. however, i think they should model the 3d characters after what the fighters looked like in mk2 and 3. right now in mkda and mkd they look cartoonish and fake. for example, their too buff and only jax was ever real buff (well, shao khan too, but thats what made him cool, he was so much bigger and stronger than the normal characters), and people like baraka were strong in a skrawny way (i would also like to see baraka go back to his old form, where he had no eyes and bigger teeth). if the characters were made to look more realistic (as well as the violence and fatalities), then that mk feel would return (they would also need to get rid of the campy mood as well. mk had few things that made you laugh (like jonny cages ball breaker), but for the most part it was dark. characters like bo rai cho kill the mood setting of the game now)

I think that to this day MKI still has the most realistic looking fighters. I think a return to the 2D format would be a step backwards, however. I agree that a new graphics engine is in order to do away with the cartoonish appearance of the fighters. I'm really looking forward (although I'm sure it'll be awhile) to the next installment of the MK series even though MK:D has just come out. Call me greedy.

It would be insanly hard to work with actors in a 3D game, but Im all for stepping back to 2D. It just works.

If they brought MK back to 2D, with nice, crisp graphics, and UMK3 gameplay, that would be my dream.

MK 3D is fun, but nothing beats the 2D games.

Agreed. I mean, while the GG series is very nice, it is not revolutionary. The closest thing to revolutionary that I believe is in there is the amount of balancing that was done. It is a 2D game, it good and it is popular, enough so to keep releasing versions in America.

So, 2d MK with high res graphics, balance the hell out of it, including updates to the system to improve gameplay and I would be in heaven.