Yeah, part of me feel that streamlining Stormtroopers with Imperial Army (at least in terms of iconic soldiers) because "audience are dumb" kinda play into that.
Like entire Stormtrooper became meme for "being told as bad ass but treated as joke" that kinda persist.
I like how in Silent Hill you are not some badass, carrying machineguns, just some dad trying to find his daughter in a nightmarish town. Most enemies aren’t even that physically impressive taking more advantage of the fog/darkness.
Then again, they kinda lost tone-appropriate enemy scaling since Far Cry 2 (at least malaria medication, gun jams, and firefights that encourage you to fight smart and not hard--mostly).
Before someone say Han Solo, he had Luke and Leia helping him.