Character design is a tricky beast.  I mean, you want your characters to be memorable; you want them to be distinctive.  You want them to be icons, something or someone that an audience or a player can get behind, wholeheartedly, whether it be an evil villain, a giant alien robot, or an angst-riddled teenage underdog whom nobody really understands. 

In traditional animation, ink-and-paint stuff, there is a goodly amount of thought that goes into making the characters distinctive.

 

You can read the rest on my Game Developer’s Blog at Gamasutra:

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KimberlyUnger/20090731/2641/Flaws_of_Character.php