The players came up with plenty of surprises, but none of them were able to make the opponent blunder. What is now different is that when a player has a surprise (to be technical, it is called a "novelty") in the opening series of moves, he can check it with a computer to be sure it is valid. In the old days, a player had to analyze it by himself or with his support team.
So most of the blame for the 12 draws goes to the players.
But a lot of blame also goes to the structure of the tournament. A select group of 8 play a candidates tournament where each plays the other twice. In this tournament, winning and taking chances is a necessity because you only have a 1 in 8 chance to become the challenger. Now the actual championship is a cautious affair because with only 12 games, and so much at stake, you have to hold back and worry more about losing than winning at least until there is a break through. (Sort of like soccer- it can take 60 minutes for the first goal, then 3 goals are scored in the last 30 minutes.) In 3 of the last 4 championship matches, the match went to tie-breakers. So the world champion of "slow" chess has been determined by ability in "fast" chess for 3 of the last 4 championships. The only redeeming feature of the current structure is that there is a world championship match every 2 years.
Nevertheless, it is well accepted that Magnus Carlsen is still the best player on the planet.