Touché!

The same could be said of Red alert and the Cold War, thing is, it's still more "serious" (and not that it's the second time that i use quote marks) than the Red Alert or Tiberium settings.
Besides, i'm sure that from that point onward most franchises cashed in from the 9/11 situation, including BF2 (that also belongs to EA).

Wow, I've never seen that video before and I can't believe those ridiculous changes! Why did they change everyone into a robot?

According to Wikipedia, it was a bit too close to current events.

I know, I've played the German version of each C&C game up to Generals (I lived there back then). The tradition of making all the soldiers androids ranges back to the first game but I think Generals was the first one where even the icons were shopped in such a ridiculous manner.
I disagree. That it was more inspired by current events didn't make it any more serious. It was ridiculous satire. The first three games had some tonge-in-cheek humor but all in all they had a serious tone. Especially the first game was in my opinion pretty good and serious social commentary at the time.

Yeah, Battlefield 2 is always that other game I instantly think of after Generals when it comes to this.

That was common practice at the time, it ranges back to the early 90's. The German rating agency USK and BPjM (sometimes referred to as a "censorship office" or something in English) were very very critical when it came to violence against people back then (and to this day they are much more sensitive when it comes to this than in case of aliens and monsters etc.). I think Syndicate may have been the first game that replaced all people with robots, then it was done to each Command & Conquer game at least up to Generals. Soldier of Fortune 2 was also affected by this madness (even turning the protagonist into the tin man from The Wizard of Oz as you can see).

Generals was of course even more controversial due to its Taliban references and stuff.

Origin is doing rather badly compared to Steam. So ofcourse the "natural" way to get more users is the console/steamworks style exclusives. Both new and old.

I can undestand why a satire of 9/11 is in bad taste, but the previous ones more serious? In what way? They had those cheesy over the top cutscenes and most improbable units with tesla weapons, prisma (laser) weapons, time travel, mind control, etc. Sure, Generals also had some improbable ones but way lesser than the others...

P.s. - Perhaps i'm using the word "serious" wrong and i should use fictional?

Yes, the first two games in the main series and the first Red Alert game can all legally be downloaded for free.

Steam has a few separate titles from before Origin was created; Origin certainly has the best deal at $20. Perhaps EA could be convinced to release some of the games for a much higher price than on Origin.

StarCraft's Twilight was an amazing work of science-fiction.

I don't see why sci-fi elements alone would make something less serious. And the only intentionally comedically overacted one in the original series by Westwood is Red Alert 2, the other ones are just badly acted aside from a few comedic relief kind of moments. Unlike RA2 and Generals each of the first three games went for a rather grim overall tone.

Speaking of Origin, they're offering Crusader:no Remorse for free at the moment.

So... Am I the only one who liked the Tiberium games but none of the others? (I count Red Alert 1 as a Tiberium game.)

But... it doesn't even have any tiberium!