But as KHALON pointed out, DC/WB probably had to approve the design before it made it into the game. And DC has been notorious for making sure things are the way they want them to be before they show up in the game. If DC/WB approved it, the design and/or artwork on the character is not a problem. It may not agree with your aesthetic sensibilities, which ends up being more of a personal issue than a full-fledged problem, but if the arbiters of what is allowed approved the look then the ground on which you're standing loses some of its stability.
You are looking at it from the corporate point of view, rather than the comic fan point of view. Which is fine. If you want to side with corporate interests that's great. In any case, I'm waiting for images that show this "modern heroes" aesthetic. This thread has already become too bogged down for me to bother with - unless I can be proven wrong with recent comic book art that has facial images of WW and Superman that look like the current DCUO models. In which case I will admit my failure as a fan of comic book art and drop this subject forever. But for now, unless such images appear, this thread is pretty much dead to me.
I don't think it comes down to just a corporate approval kind of thing. Back during the buildup to one of the WOTL episodes, they talked about how involved and attentive to detail DC was about the NPCs, Brother Warth to be precise. It's about the one hour mark of this video. If DC gets that nitpicky, that's not just corporate, that's the artistic part of the company saying, "Hey, this needs to be fixed, it's not quite right." If anything, that's evidence of a comic fan point of view. A suit in the company isn't going to notice that.
Google it. Be sure to specify in the search field which artist since there's been more than one since Rebirth.
Regarding the above video about WotL concept. There was one room I haven't seen, the "Lodestone" I think, where all the passages for the rings to travel for new bearers. Did they decide to go against using that area? Looks pretty amazing and yet Ive yet to see it. And I remember watching this livestream years ago, and totally forgot about it. Any reason as to why or am I just missing something?
I like the new model for Nightwing, it is truer to the Jim Lee aesthetic. The original version artist made their faces weird, it was consistent with the rest of the models. Here is an example of the evolution from DCUO Launch to DCUO 2019: Illustration 1 shows of course the artwork of Jim Lee, in number 2 was the original mesh with square jaw and sloping forehead. 3 is the revamp, but the head and hair look odd, the texture map is weird having thin eyebrows, and if the model in 4 is the same model from 3, just rendered in a different engine? Not sure? The models were low poly yes, but the proportions were off as well, they did not really do Jim Lee's artwork justice. The next models I hope get a revamp are The Penguin and Ras Al Ghul (he looks like Logan from Wolverine)
Look at the boots and the wrists, the new model sort of is more in line with this depiction. My only gripe with the new mesh is the blue bird on his chest looks better more dominant than the smaller version, and the buckles on his gloves look out of place, eye sore... Improvements are the head/face and I like the boots, I would possibly add his nightsticks to his back, but that's just me! I would also add a bump map/texture map to his outfit to give it more depth.