Sometimes people are burned out by negativity or the game not being as fun as it used to be; it can be that the game is letting them down, or they're just finding other things than the game to focus on (I think that's generally a good thing.)

But what I've been struck by doing all the interviews for Community Evolved is how many good and interesting folks are out there doing astounding things out there, even now, and that feeling that there's not community out there is mostly confirming whatever conceptions we have in our heads. I would posit that those thoughts are generally wrong. If there's nothing on the forums that interests you, go make something that does and let us know about it.

Take it from someone who has been feeling burned out by a community (and it's not HBO)--meta discussion leads to nothing useful insofar as the community. You just start sounding more like NeoGAF :)