I looked at the game and my 1st thought was, wow this could have been a super cool. The city disaster theme doesn't really bother me. However, had it been incorporated in more of an Ex-Machina, AI, Matrix, type vibe I think it would have been much cooler. You could have kept the phone, used it as integration to co-op with AI to defend the city. You could also have produced an avenue that the AI was the cause of the disasters later in the game. Obviously rather than a cartoon look, something a little darker would have to be used for the LCD & animations. Also, people may saw it wasn't "fully original" if you drew small parallels from those source materials.

I am probably off base & a lot of people would have thought it was terrible if created in such a way. However, it was the my immediate reaction & thoughts when I saw the theme.