Well I just watched Seattle mop the floor with New Orleans (which I thoroughly enjoyed as a Carolina fan) and of course much was made about the legendary loudness of Seattle's stadium. They reclaimed the world record tonight -- 137 decibels.
In the pregame show they talked about how Seattle's new stadium was designed with architectural features to magnify the crowd noise, and that's what I sort of take issue with. Crowd noise is a part of the game, and visiting teams have to prepare for it with their snap count, especially on 3rd downs. But I find something vaguely lame about specifically designing a playing field to magnify it.
What do you think? Is it just part of the game, how different venues have unique characteristics? Or is it gimmicky?