There are games where I really enjoyed the story, characters, etc....  They have all been RPGs or Adventure games.  I just don't think story and especially cutscenes fit with action games. 

Even when both the gameplay and the cutscenes are done well these two parts seem like they are working against each other in an action game.  If the action is really good, then the cutscenes seem like a distraction.  And if the cutscenes are really interesting, then the action feels like a distraction.  The action pumps me up, but the cutscenes put me in a reflective, empathic mood.  The two just do not fit together.

This is all before considering how overhyped a game like The Last of Us is.  Even if you compare it to a movie, then it's really just a zombie movie.  People are acting like it is a work of fine art.  Nope, it's just a zombie movie.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying a zombie movie, but there are definitely a lot of people out there who overhype it.

So, at best The Last of Us is like a zombie movie turned into a game.  But I actually don't think it's as good as a zombie movie.  Action games and cutscenes do not go together.  A zombie RPG or Adventure game would probably have a more enjoyable story.  I guess I should go play "The Walking Dead" games and see what I think.  That feels like a more natural medium for a story oriented zombie game.

The most I'd tolerate is roughly 20% of a game consisting of passive cutscenes. Getting past that percentage makes a game move closer into 'just play it on youtube' territory.

I've still never actually seen the ending of Xenoblade 2. That thing dragged on way too long, and apparently you can't even skip the credits to see the post-credit scene? So while it may be better than it was getting a generation ago, there are still some developers that haven't learned how to be disciplined storytellers.

And as long as Kojima is still making videogames, we will always have cutscenes that are Way Too Friggin Long.

I enjoy a good cutscene or game story, but I feel like few games have any desire to edit the story down to keep the game moving along. In ga,es with dialogue boxes, I like to play a game where I read only the first sentence of each box of text, and see if the story still makes sense...almost half the time, it’s just fine.
I also agree that TLoU is judged almost entirely on story and presentation to the exclusion of everything else.

I used to like cutscenes.... back in the '90s when that sort of thing was still novel. Nowadays though I just want gameplay (which is why I play mostly indie games these days).

Let me be clear though: I don't mind something like a 10 to 15 second cutscene, every once in a good while, just to set things up. But when I have to sit there for a full minute or longer watching a movie, I get annoyed.

Story? I don't need story. I've heard just about every story there is to be told. Most games these days just seem like remixes of old stories anyway. It mostly just boils down to "stop the evil dude who wants to destroy everything" anyway.

I kind of miss the days when you had to imagine your own story. Or the game had a story but it was super vague and you had to fill in the blanks yourself. Games like Stela and Abzu comes to mind (which is why I mostly play games like that these days).

go to the 3 or 4 threads discussing the second game with a lot of posts and you'll see you are very wrong. It does have a very big and complete package, with story being only one of the elements.

Like, Xenoblade without cutscenes wouldn’t be good for it’s story. Cutscenes in that game show important parts and push the story forward. I mostly play Nintendo games and jrpgs, the cutscenes in those have been good and an asset. Can’t speak for Sony games, microsoft games.

It was not a good written comment so I deleted it.

Well, Life is Stranger has a filthy gameplay where you basically only spend your time finding any item you can interact and the cutscenes do almost everything else for you

And still one of my favorite games

So what I can say is: I really don't care if it has many cutscenes or not. I love cinema, I love music, I love books and I love games. When some game undertakes to bring in elements of any of those medias I will play it and see what it offers

If I end enjoying and feeling connected with the game, so that's a good game for me