It's always sad when a developer or publisher goes belly-up.  But, in this case, is anyone really surprised?  3D Realms developed the original Duke Nukem in 1991. It's now... 2009.  Have they worked on anything of note since then? I mean, how long can a developer rely on one single franchise to carry them through?  Sequels are fine and all that, but you've got to expand your horizons a bit if you expect people to buy your games. And we're not talking about shitty games (just see the list of winners these guys have developed), or games that have been in development for 12 years and never released.

R.I.P., but we can't help thinking it's not that big a loss to the industry.