To me its all about how much focus/time you HAVE TO GIVE the game to play it how it's meant to be played. I can't think of a single person that could come home and say, hmmm I feel like playing 15 minutes of Mass Effect.
Mass Effect to me is a "hardcore" game, because the point is to play from the start, see the story, finish the game. Nothing "casual" about it.
A game like Rock band, has a single player, and you CAN devote endless hours to it, but in order to get the Rockband experience you don't NEED to. When you quit and come back, it's the same experience. It's a game that requires no real devotion of time to play it how it was supposed to be played. Rockband to me is a casual game.
Of course Casual games CAN be played Hardcore, but that doesn't change what they were geared to be. I've been to so many parties where I've played 5 minutes of smash brothers, then passed the controller to the next player, never to think about it again that whole night. But not because it's a bad game, but because I can casually pick it up without forcing myself to continue, the point of the game is to play it, not to experience it as a whole. Whereas with Mass Effect, if you only see the beginning, where does that leave you? The game isn't complete.
Thats my 2c's anyway.
From 0 to KICKASS in .stupid seconds.
