Depends on the game. Definitely longer than 8 hours. (Bad bad bad bad value for your money).

If the gameplay mechanics are fun, longer (Basic Halo gameplay mechanics are awesome for example, I never tire of stomping out enemy groups so it could use more filler). If I only play because of the story, then as long as the story is fun.

I agree that it all depends on the game and genre. I think that (for example) Call of Duty 4, while very short, provides a better experience than many other FPS games out there. It has multiplayer to help offset the singleplayer, but I'm taking this thread as talking about singleplayer games so I wont go into that.

FPSs - 15 - 30 hours

RPGs - 50 - 90 hours.

If the stories are good, I would be happy longer then above. An RPG that's 120+ hours though would be way to long.

RTS - screw length, give me multiplayer

longer

Should be longer. I realized this when I looked at my play time in The Godfather: Blackhand Edition. I loved that game, and now I can't play it, because it's so short and has almost no replayability once you beat it.

That really depends what kind of game it is, games like GoW would be really boring if they were like 50-60+ hours I think those games have the perfect lenght...

And games like FF would be really boring if they were 10-20 hours...

Short games with replayability is alot better than long games. online multiplayer shooters or party games you can play over and over again is alot better than a rpg that you play once or maybe twice then shelve it.

That's why I say it depends on the type of game. For example, I've played Counter-Strike, TFC (now TF2), and Battlefield 2 for years despite any actual single player merit (aside from some bots).

Long games like Okami.
Short Games: Something with multiplayer.

I like games that you can enter and exit with relative ease. I like RPGs -- but usually ones where I only have to play for an hour at a time. Life intrudes sometimes.

Mike from Morgantown

Who is trying to find the time for the final 2-3 hour battle to finally finish DQ8.