AO and AE aren't good games because they're 2D. They're good games because they have strong visual design, interesting stories and mechanics that rely on a series of character interactions. Most of the puzzles involved learning how each of the creatures behaved, and abusing that. It was a really great system.
It's also a system that could be really well done in 3D, but it would get exponentially more complex. From what I read about MO I always imagined a game that was much more open ended. You enter a factory, and then you have to find a way to save muds and bring it down. Maybe damaging a conveyor belt with a grenade would mean that muds need to be assigned to fix it, and maybe it would be easier to save them from there than where they were before. You could have a central "factory brain" that assigned groups of sligs and muds jobs based on what's happening. It would be complex, but also governed by simple rules.
It's a pretty big job doing Oddworld right in 3D. It couldn't be any old 3D platfomer, just like AO and AE aren't some 2D platformer. The perspective isn't important.
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