I just wanted to post this and see how many other people are pissed off about this. Granted I'm a little RPG biased but I've been able to beat non-RPG games in under 20 hours, and for 60.00 for the game I feel like I'm being ripped off personally. The graphics are superb, I get it. But why only short gameplay? If all these game developers were smart they'd do something like Oblivion and add expansions to games and such and new storylines and sell it as DLC. New maps? Big **bleep**ing deal. I want gameplay and new chapters to all the games that have come out. All the PC games and MMOs with these new expansions have proved people are willing to shell out $20.00-$40.00 for a new expansion or add on to a game. I'm not looking for new maps, a new costume, a new character for $10.00. I'm more about gameplay than anything. I think I play NES/SNES/PSOne games more than PS3 games due to the lack of content and gameplay hours. I guess the big question here is how short is too short? Even 360 people playing some Halos get ripped off by 20 hours of storyline. I don't know anymore. 

    My first real game was Xenogears for Playstation and that took me like 75 hours my first time through. And it is probably the #1 RPG that I have ever played. It had everything. Don't know, am I the only one that feels this? I hope not I just feel ripped off. I might actually start renting my games until better ones come out. $60.00 is a lot to spend for anyone these days on a new video game, I saw someone say it took only 10 hours to beat Dead Space. For real? I'll just rent it. I also feel like the only replay value in games for me is if they release trophies. Maybe some people don't care about trophies but it definitely sells games and makes players who own it already to go back and replay it. Sorry for the rant I guess just something that was on the top of my head today.

do you remember the cartridge era, games now are still cheaper then the panicle with n64, and some of those snes cart i remember dishing out 80+ quite a few times

and do you never replay your games, i remember beating the original halo on all setting each level some took longer then others, and with multiplayer the money is all made up. rainbow six the same way, and i played dead rising forever, honestly it breaks down to if you spend the money on it, do you get your gaming time out of it, and id say the balance is still good, More accessible than in the past to gamers with less time. and enough to do so people who play the hell outa games dont get gipped.

on a side note the longest story game i can remember playing is FFVII easily over 200 hours, but the games with the most time had either no story (P.T.O II, and somewhere around 400+ hours id say), very limited story burnout/civilization.

though if your looking for a recomendation as for a good game with lots of replay look at any of the hitman games on home consoles, there are so many ways you can do things its retarded. i hope they come out with a new one soon

Oh men..XENOGEARS....best RPG for me along with FFVII.

I completely agree with you. It seems as HD gaming is not the best we could have hoped for...I prefer simple sprite games like Xenogears..with hours and hours of gameplay....than a game that have ultra realistics graphics but because of that, 5 hours of gameplay

I disagree because COD4 and GT5P lasted me a few hundred hours.

^ of course it lasted. You played them about 50 times.

I'm not pissed at all. Gears 2 is roughly 10 hours. It's the best 10 hours of single player gaming Ive had. (apart from OOT). I would rather those 10 hours be awesome than them try and add another 20 hours and it be average. You can always tell when a dev has added shit in to lengthen the game. (looks at Half life 2 and the unnecessary bore fest that was the graveyard and entire zombie part).

Plus when a dev is a good one, you get awesome multiplayer too. The Horde mode is the best multiplayer experience Ive ever had. It craps all over deathmatch, Team etc etc.

In an effort to keep development costs down a lot of companies have been selling games with far less content ... In some cases I think this is actually a very good thing because, rather than selling a game with 10 multiplayer modes each with 20 maps, you get a smaller set of high quality multiplayer modes (4) and a smaller set of high quality maps for each mode (5) which makes the game far more enjoyable.

More hours of gameplay = better game???

Thats a pretty silly way of thinking in my opinion. I'd rather take 5 hours of quality and innovative gameplay than 100 hours of the same old...same old... hence why I hate RPGs...games are too long with far too much repetition.

I really don't care if a game has over 10 hours...infact I probably won't like it as much because its hard for an action game to stay intense and interesting for that long.

Like no one would like a 3 hour Jean Claude Van Damme movie...

Also, as far as games with a good multiplayer like halo and COD, they have endless replayability.

I've clocked 1800 multiplayer matches in Halo 3. Each match is about 10 minutes. I've beaten the campaign twice so thatsabout 12 hours.
18000 minutes = 300 hours + 12 (for campaign)

Roughly 312 hours of gameplay. And I'm still playing about 5 hours a week...

It's because multiplayer is so up at the moment, which adds alot of value.
I don't play a lot of multiplayer, but I don't mind shelling out 60 bucks for a good game.
I usually think of i this way:
I don't mind paying 60 bucks for something that I can play for all eternity, if I want to. By comparison, I don't mind paying a 7th or 8th of that price to go see a movie. But if I want to see it again, I have to pay again. And if you hold the two up against eachother, the price pr. hour is about the same.

Its easy to SAY games should be longer,but how can you make games longer without decreasing the quality of games is the real problem.

Sure you can have 100 hours of COD4 but after a while the game gets boring.