Nothing wrong with a little linearity, so long as the game doesn't involve a perfectly straight path. :P

I think the next big innovation in the FPS genre will be non-linear games. Games in which there will be side quests, choices in which missions you want to take, and most of the game being completely open from the very beginning.

If a game is linear, then it needs a good story to draw you along, like Uncharted. I think there is a difference between a game like Uncharted, when it is "as straight as a ladder" to RSV, where there are some minor choices, but personally, I prefer linear games, cause then I don't miss anything, or completely open word games

I'm strongly opposed to linear gaming, and I can tell you precisely why. The great strength of video games -- as opposed to movies, books, music, scultpure, painting, opera, stage drama, or any other medium we might compare them to -- is that the audience makes choices. The sequence of actions in a movie is predetermined by the film makers; the next word in a book is decided by an author; the lines in every aria are decided by the composer; the way each join in a finger articulates and connects to the next joint is decided by the sculptor.

The singular thing that separates games from other mediums is that interactivity, and linear gameplay specifically and consciously muffles this  unique aspect. It is the decision by the game designer to force you to go in a line that they define; you cannot go left, you cannot go right, you must go straight -- straight, as the game designer decides to define it. 

To repeat for emphasis: linear gameplay directly stifles the unique characteristic that defines video games as distinct from all other similar mediums. If you don't have a problem with that, you're welcome to your opinion. I personally believe that the best pieces in any medium play to the strengths of that medium, and don't try to be something else (a book trying to be a movie, or a stage drama trying to be an opera, and so forth). 

Well, Planescape: Torment is an example of a game that uses non-linearity to a great effect. Every side-quest you do, you discover a little more about yourself, your nature, or the multiverse around you. But even then, the main story still represents a linear progression: you do one thing to get to the next plot point, then another to get to the next, and so on, even if the things you do may differ. (To get out of the undead city, for example, you can either earn the trust of the inhabitants, sneak out, find the Silent King and use that as blackmail, or simply kill everybody. But either way, you need to get out, and there's no option to avoid that part of the game if you want to advance the story.)

@ Munkeh111: Not necessarily. My favorite example is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the story of which can basically be summed up as, "some bad stuff happens, and now you need to get out of a pit- and peril-filled palace." The thing that kept me playing that game was figuring out the next puzzle, not the story.

@ Bodhesatva: I disagree. You confuse "the ability to make choices" as meaning the same thing as "interactivity." The main characteristic that differentiates games from other entertainment media is interactivity, of which the ability to make choices is only a constituent (and often entirely unnecessary) part. A linear adventure-puzzle game like Prince of Persia, to use the same example as above, couldn't be done as a movie, or a book, or a play. And yet, while there's very little choice-making in the game, there is a heck of a lot of interactivity. To say that the only thing that defines games as a media is the ability to make choices is a pretty narrow-minded viewpoint.

for certain situations linear is the better choice other times its not.

the new big one will be racing games that will play like burnout paraise

I read a review that said bioshock was to linear and i couldn't have disagreed more with that statement. The storyline and characters are constantly involved in every minute of that game and for it to not follow a straight forward path would have ruined the game.

The more linear a game is the more control the developer has over your experience and the greater attention to detail can be paid to your experience, think Bioshock or Call of Duty 4, both games are linear, but they are engineered to give you the most intense experience possible.

Yet and this is key I think a really good linear game, should never feel linear, you should for the most part be compelled to go the way your supposed to go(or subconsicouly you choose to go that way), and the idea of a large world should be painted, not so much so that we keep hitting invisible walls and say"I guess I can't go there!" but enough that we feel the game isn't on rails, like hallway after hallway with only one door opened at the end. Half-life 2 does a great job of feeling open world without actually being open world.

open world vs. linear is a game choice that amounts to: exploration vs. experience.

If a game is best as a linear game then let it be linear and if its best as an open world then let it be an open world.

Just enjoy the game for what it is.

I strongly despise non-linear games in general because 99% of them are built this way because the programmers are too lazy and stupid to sit down and think about how to give the player an interesting and rewarding gaming experience so they take the easy route and let the player "explore" and call it "depth". Videogames of the 80s & 90s are far superior to modern games.

If all you do is follow a predetermined path with no choices possible, yes, it really does make a game vastly less appealing. Obviously this is a bigger deal for some genres than others, of course. It's a problem everywhere though. There's simply no excuse for developers to ruthlessly shoulder aside the player at every moment, which I've seen occuring way too often in the past five years or so. I also completely don't accept the argument that non-linearity is a phenomenon of 3D gaming. What about great 2D platformers like Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World, where you had your choice of which levels to play? What about the spectacular 2D RPGs of the SNES? Sorry, not buying it.

This reads more like an apologetic for some of the poorly made games of the past few years. No problem if your game is painfully linear and five hours long - as long as the production values are good and it has multiplayer, it's a 9.0! Reviewers seem to have bought into this philosophy, but for me, that's emphatically not what makes a good game. If there's no room for the player to make real choices, you're not really playing a game at all - just watching an interactive movie.

You can cut-and-paste Bodhesatva's response for a further elaboration of how I feel on this issue.