[abhorrence]

The only thing I can imagine here is that many of the games have "dle" or "le" suffixes and sometimes even describe themselves as "Wordle, but...". It seems more likely that it's NYT's lawyers hoping to bully the "competition".

[cma]

NYT does have a trademark on Wordle, but that shouldn't be covered by the DMCA.

[ronsor]

You are not allowed to use the DMCA for trademark disputes