The "popular fad" aspect of string theory has certainly lost much of its luster, no question, particularly as far as the general public is concerned. (The early excitement about the theory in the 1980's was apparently rather over the top.) The fact that folks like Peter Woit and Lee Smolin were able to publish popular books about their distaste for string theory reflects that (and those books in turn did a lot to establish the "string theory is overrated" counter-meme).
But within actual physics departments, as far as I've been able to tell string theory holds much the same position that is has for many years: it's the direction that most people interested in pursuing a "theory of everything" seem to find most promising. (Plenty of physicists have other interests, of course, even within particle physics: the phenomenology involved in interpreting LHC data and predicting new phenomena to look for at that scale is a big deal these days, and string theory really isn't relevant to those questions.) As far as I can tell from the inside, that's primarily a genuine process of ongoing scientific judgement rather than pure groupthink.
As a string theorist, I can see to some degree why you'd say it reminds you of epicycles: I think most of us would agree that there's got to be some deeper underlying truth that would make the structures of string theory seem more unified and elegant. The difference between that and epicycles, at least to a string theorist, is that we're optimistic that string theory as we know it is a valid, well-defined approximation to the underlying theory, whatever form that may take. Epicycles, on the other hand, were (as I understand it) sort of a hack, without any intrinsic connection to the true heliocentric model.
"The phenomenology involved in interpreting LHC data and predicting new phenomena to look for at that scale is a big deal these days, and string theory really isn't relevant to those questions."
I think "string theory is overrated" meme is mainly fueled by the fact that it "really isn't relevant to those questions". I got the impression that many string theorists claimed string theory to be relevant to those questions, and only changed position once it became clear that won't be the case.
But within actual physics departments, as far as I've been able to tell string theory holds much the same position that is has for many years: it's the direction that most people interested in pursuing a "theory of everything" seem to find most promising. (Plenty of physicists have other interests, of course, even within particle physics: the phenomenology involved in interpreting LHC data and predicting new phenomena to look for at that scale is a big deal these days, and string theory really isn't relevant to those questions.) As far as I can tell from the inside, that's primarily a genuine process of ongoing scientific judgement rather than pure groupthink.
As a string theorist, I can see to some degree why you'd say it reminds you of epicycles: I think most of us would agree that there's got to be some deeper underlying truth that would make the structures of string theory seem more unified and elegant. The difference between that and epicycles, at least to a string theorist, is that we're optimistic that string theory as we know it is a valid, well-defined approximation to the underlying theory, whatever form that may take. Epicycles, on the other hand, were (as I understand it) sort of a hack, without any intrinsic connection to the true heliocentric model.