Over at Forbes, Dave Thier has written a negative article on Zynga entitled, “Why Zynga is Doomed.”

First of all, great article title. I’m jealous. Secondly, all is not doom and gloom in the world of Zynga. They just raised $1 billion and Mark Pincus and Zynga was on Rock Center with Brian Willams on NBC last night (for the 100 or so people who watch that TV show).

But, Mr. Thier does raise one really good point about Zynga’s future prospects.

Goodfellas, street toughs, and knock-around girls have once again taken to the virtual streets in this sequel to one of social gaming’s most popular pastimes. Mafia Wars 2 is a significant departure from its predecessor, but does it make gamers an offer they can’t refuse?

Zynga isn't known for creating sequels to its franchises, but that's changing with the announcement of Mafia Wars 2, the sequel to the early Facebook RPG Mafia Wars. The sequel transplants the series into a 3D world for the first time ever, though it looks to maintain the same empire building formula.

Mafia Wars may have more than 14 million monthly active users on Facebook, but on MySpace the game is no more. Developer Zynga has pulled the game, likely due to the steady decline in users on MySpace.

I want to say that Knights of the Crystals is Final Fantasy for Facebook. I want to say that Square Enix has scrapped the overused Mafia Wars model of Facebook RPGs and bettered the platform with a crisp, new formula. Above all, I want to say that this is the Facebook RPG that we’ve all been waiting for. Sadly, I can’t. While Knights of the Crystals glimmers in several spots, its basic playset springs from the same mission system that new Facebook developers have borrowed to the point of abuse, and thus we’re left with a merely good game that masquerades as a masterpiece.

It all started out so innocently. For years now, Facebook has been rightly or wrongly associated with disarmingly endearing characters and bucolic bouts of farming, and most brutal action largely goes on in text in grittier games such as Mafia Wars. MetroGames’ Auto Hustle seeks to change all that. Taking Rockstar’s famed and controversial Grand Theft Auto formula and sprinkling it with a few doses of social gaming, Auto Hustle brings GTA’s saga of car theft, mass murder, and inevitable reckless driving to Facebook while suffering a few wrecks in the process.

Zynga has been quietly closing a lot of games of Mafia Wars's vintage lately, with both Street Racing and Roller Coaster Kingdom gone in the span of the past few months. Mafia Wars might have become a relic of an earlier era in social gaming in the hands of a lesser developer, but Zynga has steadfastly refused to abandon Mafia Wars and its 24.1 million active users, 8.7 million of whom are playing every day. Instead, Mafia Wars has seen a series of updates and upgrades roll out in the past year that try to bring this old text RPG into the era of more interactive, graphically rich games like FarmVille. Mafia Wars: Las Vegas is possibly Zynga's greatest success to date.