I don't see such a transition. Some episodes are funnier then others. Some are lght hearted, some with more pressing points. Sometimes he says something original, sometimes he talks about stuff everyone on the internet already knew ages ago. I think these inconsistancies occur because he tries to use a different approach in each and every episode, knowing that eventually people will get bored of hearing the same old shtick of him accentuating the negative all the time. Some of these angles are more entertaining than others, but I don't think there is a trend towards less funny/more serious over time, the funnier/serious episodes are sparodic.
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I would have to agree with Maninahat. His recent review of the sims 3 is almost without any doubt his funniest. Comedy is always hit/miss, imo.
Interesting that Lemur would find Sims 3 the funniest, given the backlash it seems to have caused. But then again, that does support maninhat's point; a work that varies itself between instalments is going to attract different fans to different episodes (see: the Metroid Prime trilogy. Each segment had different elements to it, and consequently each instalment is someone's favourite and least favourite. Incidentally, for me it's Corruption and Echoes, respectively)
I'll have to rewatch his reviews... the first time I saw Zero Punctuation it seemed like he didn't believe in his scathing remarks - he was just mean for show. So I never followed him but a few days ago I watched his newer stuff and I liked his criticism much more. Maybe I remembered wrong.
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Has he jumped?
I once wrote that I jokingly say he jumped the shark when his voice changed, but now has he really?
I've begun to think that something I'm not sure what has changed in his style and now its less funny, oh its still interesting to watch and there's moments of true brilliance and charm here and there and I eagerly refresh the page every Wednesday thousands of times to make the internet moles run faster anyways where was I? Yahtzee, right.
I think he needs an editor or some sort of creative assistance at this point I think hes exhausted his own abilities to keep the same level of "Laughs per minute" as high as it was during say his review of Crysis or the Witcher. He has things to SAY but I don't think hes at the point where the things he chooses to record are necessarily the funniest he COULD have said. I am not an expert at whatever subjective study of humorology that would be relevant to this review and can be discounted at your leisure but I do have an opinion that's been kicked around my head a few times and will try to put it into words.
Anyways, his humor in the beginning seemed to be more along the lines of him liking to play games but upset with the BS developers shove down his throat and meanders around between trying to make a point and talking about the game deconstructing both, either, or something. This works this was funny especially some of his more hilarious tangents but it seems he went from someone who didn't take what himself says only half seriously to thinking or at least implying to me that everything he says is WORD OF GOD and anything less isn't worth his or my the viewers time and I think this shift occurred somewhere around his Webcomics review which was a whole show dedicated as a thinly veiled Take That at Ctrl+Alt+Del, yes everyone can have their opinions but hes already given arguable constructive criticism to outright bashing on his own website did he HAVE to dedicate an entire episode on something 90% of the Internet already agrees with him?
Basically it seems like there has been a gradual tonal shift from something "fun" to something "serious" and heavily prone to constant "anyone with an internet connection should already know" Take That's.
In short he went from Working the Gameplay and Story Gnomes to Death to working the Graphics and Gameplay Gnomes to death.