Sure they are, what makes you say they aren't?

Behemoth make some really good games though.

They were funded and co-developed by SCEA.

What I'm trying to say is that being an indie game doesn't make that game bad. There are a lot of examples of AAA bad games, and there are a lot of bad indie games too. It has nothing to do with their budget. The main problem about indie games is that there are a lot of shovelware because anyone can make and publish a rubbish game... And I think that they high rated indie games are actually very good, but that's not the case with some AAA titles which are painfully bad.

Most Indies are utter crap but when you encounter gems like Bastion or Super Meat Boy, it makes up for it tenfold.

At least three games in your list was great, much better than typical retail games. I'm sad for you, but then again everyone is free to like what they like.

Fixed the title for you, as that would be more correct imo. They're are just Marketing-overbloated graphic engines with no ideas or direction since the last millenium.

The main problem with Indies are that they don't get much exposition if any at all, so you're out to find out yourself it a game is any good or not, or even if the genre of the respective games are anything you like. Word of mouth is helpful, but it doesn't tell anyone if the genre of the game is appealing to the respective gamers.

They also cover mostly games from more unpopular genres (shooters, for instance, are a rare type of games for indies, just like non-open world action-adventures, since there are more than enough already on the market) and without shiny graphics (although titles like project Cars and Star Citizen beg to differ), mostly because they cover more unconventional ideas. Pixel art is often used because they can't afford an expert in graphics, but good pixel art is just as difficult to do. Just compare Freedom Planet or Shovel Knight with the likes of a Fist of Awesome for example, you'll see instantly the difference between good and bad pixel art.

And also the fact that less talented persons (to put it nicely) often try to make some games without having a proper direction themselves, resulting in rather horrible games, but that's mostly just on Steam Greenlight. On consoles, these games are much less prevalent, if they occur at all. The culprit here are engines like Unity, Game Maker or RPG Maker, in itself truly superb engines, but which attracts a lot of shenengians, and their asset markets, which gets abused to hell and back from these types of "programmers"

The trouble is "indie" is a meaningless label. XBLA had a "indie" channel which many cite as being the perfect example of how poor so many indie games are, but then it was filled 99% with homebrew software.

Like you say, people call Child of Light indie. It was funded and published by one of the biggest publishers in the industry. 2D or "retro" themed aren't necessarily indie. Nor is low budget. But indie also isn't restricted to a single genre or style.

No it is not fair to say that. Indie=independently developed. Naturally, being more indies means there will be more bad ones. That's just the odds man. But there are quality indie games. Shovel Knight, Freedom Planet, FAST Racing League (and the upcoming Neo), Kingdom Come Deliverance, Star Citizen, Dust: An Elysian Tail, No Man's Sky, Elite: Dangerous, Terraria, the list just goes on. To say "indie=bad" is an unfair generalization. There are too many quality indies to make that kind of statement.

I've liked a lot of indie games. I think the mix is similar to full retail games, most are ordinary and forgettable, or downright bad, some are good, great or excellent.