1) I think there has always been a good number of gamers who preferred games of a non-cinematic experience and I've often seen it discussed on other sites. Around here though, given the titles that fall into this mass cinematic experience genre, it's been too sensitive a discussion to have -  given the backlash that would probably occur. Now that one well known individual of said community has clarified what many of us have been thinking all this time it's a safer thing to talk about  . I wouldn't say it's a backlash against the cinematic experience. It's just the beginning of any chance of reasonable discussion on the matter that not every game has to strive for this style.

2) And those are the exact feelings a lot of us have. By no means are these games bad. They do what they're meant to very well. But the industry has gotten into this funk that this is the way that all big budget games should be going, which simply isn't true. The critical praise of these titles has only given the notion that cinematic games are the future of the industry more support and it could only lead to hurting the industry in the future.

I prefer games with a more open nature; ones that reward exploration in more ways than just unlockable collectibles. I prefer a story that is open to me to discover through the atmosphere, setting and characters - not having a story pushed into my face. Games where there's no one way to get passed a challenge and experimentation in your approach is encouraged. I'm not averse to linear experience (heck, Portal 2 is about as linear as you can get and I love it), just experiences that are cinematic at the expense of the actual gaming to be done - and that's something Jaffe expressed just about perfectly above.