I think that the open-world FPS will rise to power, actually. Far Cry 3 and Borderlands are exemplary examples thus far.

Edit: ...and Fallout.

It would seem to be the logical progression of things. Players are increasingly demanding more freedom out of the games they are playing, and it entirely understandable. The reason we play games is to get high, and the reason we get high from playing games is that a natural biological process taking place in our brains that is creating a reward to encourage us to learn new skills. The reason that a game becomes boring is that we have mastered the skills required to complete the task. Our brains not only cease to give us a reward for doing the task, but they start to cause us to feel down, because they want us to be accomplishing something.

The reason online shooters are so popular now is fairly straight forward. Mastering the task takes longer, because the others that we are playing against keep moving the goal posts on us. The moment we think we have found the most efficient way to complete the task. The other players find a way to thwart our strategy. Effectively making it the least efficient way to do the task. So those games keep us high for much longer. That said our brains aren't totally dumb to what is going on.

They have ways to deal with tasks that are not entirely predictable. They begin to work on creating a larger strategy that will give them the most likely outcomes most of the time, and once that happens the end outcome is inevitable. Every time something turns out as our brain expected. We start to get a diminishing return. Until once again it becomes boring. So even these games become boring. Even if they were more complicated, and thus harder to solve.

The problem as it stands right now is that we are starting to develop genre memory, and while each game has its own set of nuances. Their shared commonalities allow our brains to reuse previously developed tool sets to master them at faster and faster rates. Player based competition cannot change the fact that the basic rule sets are painfully simple. Like Junkies it is taking increasingly more to get our fix, and the only way to address that it to keep pouring on greater amounts of nuance, or address the core problem itself.

Opening up the worlds by default increases the number of variables our brains have to contend with. While at the same time it creates more options for us to sift through to find the best outcomes. That said I think the original poster is wrong about one thing. The reality is Massive Online titles probably are the future, because they offer up something that no single player, or limited multiple player game can offer. There is one problem our brains reward us for solving over and over again, and they never get tired of doing so.

The name game. We thrive on creating friendships, forming communities, and trying to understand one another. It is just something we never get bored with. This is the reason that some people play these games for years, because functioning as part of a community. Is always something we have to work at, because we are never as good at it as we want to be. Yes a lot of games are going to be run by micro transactions, but that doesn't mean that others wont, or that others wont be run off of expansion sales.

The advent of micro transactions didn't kill off the subscription model, or the expansion models. Players who want to buy success will always exist, but others insist on earning their success through hard work. These players are just going to lean towards the games they feel reward their mindsets best. That said I agree with most of what you said, and right now the game I want to play most is smack dab in the middle of the open world genre. I advance ordered my copy of Defiance last night.

Some of my favorite FPS are a open world, rpg, FPS hybrid(Borderlands and Far Cry) so I would be happy with more.

Just curious.  For you, does that mean, the more linear the better?  I am just curious if you really enjoyed the game Dragon's Lair, and your thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII.  What I see now is about almost all major release now is going open world.  Even RPGs in the past were this to some degree.

I wouldn't call open world a genre, but yes it's clearly the future.

Elder Scrolls
Watch_Dogs
Fallout
Assassin's Creed
Metal Gear Ground Zero
Dragon's Dogma
Borderlands
Far Cry
Grand Feft Auto
Red Dead Redemption
Dark Souls
The Witcher 3
Destiny
Dead Island
Two Worlds
Saints Row
Just Cause

And there are others I am seeing also:

Bioshock Infinite will have degrees of this also.

Disney Infinity (well at least expandable, with a sandbox to build stuff in).

Minecraft is fully an open world and also a sandbox.  Minecraft is arguably the top sandbox game this generation. 

And I got a number of these from this article: http://gamingbolt.com/10-open-worldsandbox-games-to-look-forward-to-in-2013

Remember Me

Sacred 3

Carmageddon Reincarnation

And the thought is on mind.  Alan Wake was supposed to be originally open world, but that got dropped, eventhough the world designs is rendered as open.  Prey 2, which I believe got cancelled, was also going to be open world to.

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the Fallout games (after 3) had all the elements, no in the sense, that RPG will probably take a step back and shooting/cinematic "WOW" moments will be in front.

I love Sandbox and open world games, so I would hope that they become the next FPS.