I play Sims 3 and played Sims 2. I played GalCiv II, Europa Univ III, and CIv IV. Sims is a fun game. People buy the game because it's fun to play. Last I check, not liking a game doesn't make it crap. I don't play WoW, but I know a lot, a lot of people who do. Guess what, I don't bitch and moan about that either. They've got games they like. I've got games I like and they are obviously selling well. As for Spore, not sure about that one. Only time i see blogs, articles, or messages about that game is still DRM related, well aside from the so caleld professional reviews that won't touch controversy that might cost them advertising dollars.
And as someone mentioned already NPD doesn't track the games that don't take up as many wal-mart shelves. Course if they don't separate so called casual games from the list when they do track digital downloads, I wouldn't be surprised to see a whole lot of them up there.