Paying attention to what other players are doing is an intermediate Dominion skill; players who have played only a few games will never see that part of the game. In general, Donald's games reward repeated plays, so "breadth" gamers who are only interested in the new hotness are likely to give his games short shrift.
These people don't like diving into a single game for very long. At the beginner level, there actually isn't really that much player interaction. Of course once you get half-decent at the game there is plenty, but the learning curve for dominion is really long, which IMO is something that makes it great, but for others they'd rather play 10 other games once each. Dominion is a good game the first time you play it, but there are lots of games like that and so Dominion isn't really anything special for them. Really the only reason I got into Dominion was because I had a lot of opportunities to play it, and then once I started noticing some subtle things I looked it up online and found iso and f.ds. I definitely had no idea about the depth of Dominion or that I would still be playing it after a few years after 5 or so plays.
This all makes sense, you're probably right.
So what you're telling me is that when these people say they don't play Dominion anymore because there's not enough player interaction, what they're really saying is that they are lying to me and the real reason is that they just don't like to get really serious about any particular game. OK sure I believe you.
(begin tangent)
Settlers was my gateway game, and as such I played a LOT of it in college. When I played Settlers I thought "this game is great but it's not very interactive" (yes I know I was terribly wrong, that's the point of this). It wasn't until a few games in that I saw that hey you're on the same map competing for the same spots.
"But Adam!" you say, "It all just comes down to whoever gets the best spots and the best rolls! The trading mechanic doesn't involve any skill because if you really need brick, then everyone else needs brick too and you can't ever get any!"
And after several plays of the game I realized that if you track what resources are plentiful right now and which ones are scarce, you can offer more trades to people that are to your long-term advantage by using the current game state as leverage. It doesn't look all that glamorous but it wins games.
So trading is lame and without skill if you're bad at it; it's just harder to see it and use skill on it.
(end tangent)
I imagine it's similar in Dominion. I mean, IRL I only play the treasures I need to buy the thing I've decided I wanted -- it looks like I'm spending all of my money this turn but a lot of the time I'm not. Maybe my opponents think I got lucky draws to get exactly the amount of money I needed every turn to buy the cards that were best for my deck (because of course you have to spend all your money every turn or else UR DOIN IT RONG) while they have 5 Jacks and 5 Saboteurs and zero Provinces.
Interaction becomes painfully obvious when I play an Ambassador game with a newer player but maybe it's not as obvious with other attacks. It certainly isn't obvious with engine boards where certain components should be contested or endgame dancing is taking place -- the other guy blindly buys as many Provinces as he can and loses because I broke for Duchies and got an extra turn, then maybe he thinks I built a better deck than him when I actually didn't, I just played the endgame better.
Maybe people don't want to ever get past that (and in that case I wonder why they bother playing the game if they have no desire to develop any skill at it and just want to go through the motions. Theme? Hmm. Potato potahto I guess) but they seem to be getting something completely different out of the board gaming experience than I am. To the point where I wonder if they're playing the same game as I am when they get Dominion out. And since they seem to like 4P games, I'm guessing this may be the case.
Why would you want to play two 2-player games in real-life is what I want to know. It's more fun to all play together. I think it gets too slow at 5 players, but 4-player games are great.
Well the answer to your question is that I usually play Dominion IRL when there are two people without a game for a little bit who need something to do and I'm one of them. This usually happens when people are arriving and games are already in progress. If we have 3 or 4 players we usually play something else, something that's actually good with 4 players.
Yeah I don't think 4P Dominion is worth playing. If any attack is present you just don't get to do anything that game. Most of the time you're playing Big Money and you break for Duchies because Provinces are never attainable. If there's a junking attack, just forget it. You're in for the long haul on a game where Estates, Curses, and probably Coppers run out. I don't think there's anything fun about that, I'd rather build an engine, but even on an engine board you can't really build anything cool with two Villages. Something about potatoes again.