When thinking about games being built around a certain license one would think that it would almost always be awesome, giving the massive shortcut the developers are getting. Unfortunately i think that many of the studios that get licensing games to develop are often under pretty tight money and time-stress (big movie companies ain't got no patience for anything other than profit) causing many titles to fall flat on their head, as you mention in your post (i thought it was a good point).
With that said, The Riddick series was freaking awesome, love every game in that series! They really showed how a licensed game should look like, great mechanics that fitted perfectly to the movie/game universe, awesome for both movie fans and rookies to the universe of Riddick alike!
Nice post dude, enjoyed reading it!:)