Yeah, it sure looked stunning - though, to be honest, that's another thing that kinda bothered me about it in comparison to FC1 - FC1 was very vibrant (I know people who actually found that to be its visual downside), Crysis was somehow much more...bland I guess.

Crysis 1 is average at best. I liked 2 a lot. 3 downright sucks.

I liked all three Crysis games well enough, but the graphics were always their biggest draw; gameplay wise I'd give them a 7/10.

Some other smaller IPs I'd give a shoutout to are Binary Domain, de Blob, Overlord, World of Goo, Puppeteer, and Pandora's Tower.

Souls, not even close. It has it' own genre now.

Demon/Dark Souls

It's the best and most influential franchise

The best new game was The Last of Us, but the best new IP in the long run is easily the Souls series.

Valkyria Chronicles. It was a pretty significant leap forward for Japanese SRPGs and had amazing visuals. Instead of being able to see most of the environment from an omniscient POV, you could only see what your squad members saw.

I'd also say Xenoblade, but that's really the latest continuation of a 5th generation series, no matter what Nintendo and Monolithsoft try to claim. Not that I'm complaining, because Xenoblade was the awesome continuation of Xenogears that I had hoped Xenosaga would be, but wasn't.

It's not a claim it's fact. SE owns Xenogears. NAMCO owns Xenosaga. Nintendo owns Xenoblade. They're different IPs. They are as much the same IP as System Shock and Bioshock.  Spiritual successor's sure but not the same IP. Xeno just means other. Tak has said he just uses it as his branding. 

Dishonored. I absolutely love this game (the first one) and still find myself thinking about it and going back to play it from time to time. The atmosphere and the music was unparalleled. The powers are so much fun, the lore is intriguing and the locales great to explore. Dishonored 2 also had some moments of brilliance (Clockwork Mansion and A Crack in the Slab *chef’s kiss*) but for whatever reason didn’t impact me the way that the first did.

Also, someone mentioned The Witcher could be classed as gen 7 gaming wise and as The Witcher 3 is my favourite game of all time, I have to mention this also. I haven’t played 1 or 2, but I’m looking forward to the remake.

This.

Xenoblade didn't even start off being called that, during development it was called "Monado: The Beginning of the World". It was Nintendo's idea to change the name to Xenoblade as a tribute to Tetsuya Takahashi.

Even after that, the name Xenoblade was initially only going to be used in Japan, with the American release still planned as "Monado" as late as 2010.

https://www.siliconera.com/nintendo-chose-the-name-xenoblade/

If you love Witcher 3, I would recommend trying out 2.

It's not quite as great as 3, and it is a much more linear affair, but it has many of the same qualities that make its successor so great, and I'd still class it as an excellent game.