Dude, Goldeneye was not a laser. It was a disc that enabled an EMP nuke in space. It would send London back to the stone age, as Trevellyan said. There would be no physical damage such as buildings blowing up and stuff.
It didn't fire down and destroy anything. It would effectively wipe the power out of the UK and destroy all electronics, sending the place into chaos.
EMP is real, has been used before in real life and is in general more realistic, as it used nukes to magnify it's power.
A laser in space being built is getting a bit too Dr Evil for my liking..
I do think the visual style has a lot to do with it. In Goldeneye and other movies the locations were functional, and seemed realistic.
Some of the gadgets and stupid glowing futuristic thingies in DaD wouldn't look out of place in a Star Trek convention.
Also, the ice palace was really lame. This isn't Never Never Land.