Wow, do you really have that much disdain for MGS' story, RocketPig?
In game industry run by games like Halo, Gears of War, God of War, Mario and Zelda I'd think you would at least acknowledge that MGS does delve into deeper issues and philosophies. In the other games you get stories as generic as Man (Usually possessing superhuman attributes) kills entire alien race almost by his own abilities alone. And with Gears/Mario, you don't even get a plot-line (Which works for Mario, Gears however...).
I totally agree that MGS doesn't have the best storyline out there. As you mentioned, it does suffer from drawn-out dialog and excessive explanation; I tend to ignore the almost sci-fi elements, as they're main purpose seems to be gameplay-related.
But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find another series or title that matches both MGS' mixture of plot and gameplay. At the very least, it goes above and beyond what most videogames attempt to, and does so with a pretty good degree of success.
EDIT: Oh, and I like Kojima's attempts in grounding parts of his plot with what going on, currently, in the world. PMC's are actually pretty relevant, as is genetic engineering and digital distribution of information. He unfortunately tends to stray away from these at times, though (And that's where you're aforementioned "cheese" usually perks up).
