Big Bang theory made fun of people for liking nerdy things as the punchline. DCC references nerdy things as part of its humor. That's a huge difference.

The inner turmoil stuff is not super prevalent in the earlier books, either. I can see how the over the top absurdity can be grating if it's not your thing (I'm honestly surprised it's finding such a wide audience as it is, even outside of the groups you'd expect). However the enemies being superficial uncreative parodies is kind of the point. The aliens basically skimmed human history/pop culture and half assed the representation in their shitty game show. Also things get less generic the further down it goes.