Well I must admit similar things are happening to me, although i doubt I'll cut back on the buying part but maybe the playing part (collector as well haha). I feel a lot of games nowadays are more about shock value rather than actual content. And that is starting to ruin some gaming experiences. They are relying on gore, action sequences, intense cutscenes, outrageous storylines, or simply things that are shocking or gimmicky in nature. I mean this idea of shock value being an entire premise to a game is kinda turning me off to a lot of games.
I guess this has as a lot to do with gaming becoming all about the advertising rather than the actual game and our media is perpetuating it. I think for me this year, I started to realize this with Resident Evil 5 which was a complete turnoff compared to previous RE's namely RE4 which I thought was amazing. RE5 was more about shock value and the action in it rather than what mattered to me the most about Resident Evil... the conspiracy and the characters. The biggest slap in the face for me was of course Prototype which was exactly what I just described... a game all about shock value of the gore and what you can do in the city with absolutely no substance or competent gameplay. And then the trend continued with sub par single player gamers or ones that maybe were fun for a playthrough but just not enough. Great example of that was Modern Warfare 2 which was a fun experience, but silly story combined with a cliffhanger ending and just way too short.
I mean this isn't exclusive to the HD platforms (happening on Wii as well) but I feel the gaming industry due to large budgets and the need for making quick to see profits are starting to make games only for the sake of advertising and marketing them rather than a game that is good enough to sell on their own. All about the features and things they can show you in a trailer or a commercial or talk about in an interview but when you get down to the core game it just lacks substance, competent gameplay mechanics, and replay value thereof. And it's because of these things that gaming is starting to turn me off.
There is something I tell my co-workers all the time that I get into an "RPG craving" every now and then. I'm not a big RPG fan or not someone who plays it all the time but I'd say a lot of my RPG cravings come from the fact of being disappointed by a lackluster action game or shooter game. I just sometimes need something with a story with depth, characterization (weak or not), and something that'll reward me for putting time and effort into it. I'll also get into cravings where I just need to play something I can jump into and just have fun such as a platformer. Guess this is old school gaming haha.
So I definitely see what you are talking about, but I did enjoy Assassin's Creed II and definitely my GOTY 2009 because it had all the things I described most didn't have. Sad thing is though i see a lot more of what I described coming in 2010. Most blatant ones I've seen already has been well Dante's Inferno. I'm not ragging on the game but this is one of those titles that I just see more for shock value rather than game value. Luckily for 2010 we have a lot of brands that have been proven for years that'll release and give us gamers what we actually want... something that is fun to play and makes sure the experience we get in the game matters more than how far they can go in shock value.
