Are you talking about SFIV compared to only other SF games, or other fighting games in general.
Because set-ups in the most fundamental sense is taking a situation and applying a certain set of intended actions to that situation for your benefit. Like Ryu knocking down a character in the corner in SFII, then doing a meaty Jab fireball into another Jab fireball is a set up. It’s not a high/low/throw/left/right okizeme mix-up kind of set-up. But it’s a corner trap set up to force the opponent to take guaranteed chip. If they try to avoid it otherwise, they take additional damage as compared to the guaranteed chip. This of course is in your favor and you value this.
That’s why we have stupid terms like “set-play” that are nebulous buzzwords that mean nothing, especially when we already have a term for it, be it just as functional or more.
So to answer your question, I think there are games that may have as much or more set-ups than SFIV. What is funky and what I don’t like with SFIV is that there are a bunch of “mandatory” set-ups needed just to make the game play as simply as other games. When you jump-in with someone in Alpha 2/3 or CVS2 on wake up, you just simply jump and press a button. To do this in SFIV, you have to “normalize” the situation by doing an additional set-up (the anti-back dash OS) just to have the situation play out like in other SF games. The opponent can’t disrespect your jump-in with an invincible back dash anymore and actually take the hit or block because there is a deterrent against the back bash that leads back into itself (pre-delayed wake up). So the OS/set-up is in your favor as you either get to play the game “normally” or punish a back dash, get a bit of damage, and try to work your safe jump set-up again and try to play “normally.”
Like other games like Virtua Fighter have okizeme set ups where if people quick tech side roll, they wake up in a crouched state and are susceptible to being meatied with a mid-attack (aka overhead) and Akira had a set-up where his b. f.+P+K was a mid, knocked down on hit, can be delayed to adjust to different get up timings, and also crush reversal attacks from get up. So if the opponent kept trying to reversal or quick tech side roll, he’d just hit them and loop the situation in his favor. Of course the way around this is quick tech stand to wake up in a standing state, but the counter to that is doing a throw on that wake up option since throws work on standing opponents (doesn’t work against crouchers or people in start-up/active frames of an attack.)
A game like Guilty Gear is riddled with set ups, be it safe-jumps, OS normal throw, anti-tick throw escapes that also cover blocking correctly against staggered low hitting block strings, zoning traps, you name it.
It’s just these types of set ups you find in VF, KOF, GG, and etc. either add to the game or create an option to cover multiple options (or both, what I said aren’t actually mutual exclusive.) The thing with SFIV is that there is no real reason to not use those common anti-back dash OS and you need to use them because it makes the game “normal.” So for people that played previous SF games or are new to fighting games and started with SFIV but found the techniques tedious, SFIV OS’s are superfluous and the game could have been designed in a way to be not as tedious and new player friendly.
It’s ironic when the mission statement for making SFIV was to appeal and to cater to new, beginner players to be able to play on the level high skilled players; but when in effect, Capcom accidentally created the most technical Street Fighter game to play at the intermediate and top level play by making such OSs/set-ups “mandatory” to have success and consistency to win at those levels of play thus making the game harder for everyone.
