I'm not saying Mario is bad or anything. When they truly take the character and make a new game from it (Like Galaxy, and not like Mario Party 700 or a new remake of SMB), it's great! It's just that it's usually completely blown out of proportion to be the best thing ever since humans invented the wheel lol.
For me, games are art, they can be about much more than just "fun", and we're in 2010, "just fun" doesn't cut it anymore, we need to evolve past that to be recognized as an art form - like some games try (Heavy Rain and most Quantic Dream games, Mass Effect saga, Deus Ex, Flower, Braid, etc).