I said it when it came out, Alyx was the single best chance VR had to prove itself. It was going to be either the launching pad of the future or the high tide mark. 6 years on, it is looking like the high tide mark.
Unfortunately, it is a technical and artistic marvel but the relatively high cost to entry (decent PC and headset) meant that it was simply out of reach for most people. A high price takes it from an impulse purchase to try, and makes it a dedicated purchase and investment in the ecosystem. That killed any momentum.
I really suggest looking a bit into VRChat for some of the worlds people have created there - some of them are very complex & are telling stories by their environments that could be comparable to standalone VR games.
For some examples - PROJECT: SUMMER FLARE: https://vrclist.com/world/2924
Complex 7: https://vrclist.com/world/870431 (and Fins worlds in general)
1:1 model of an Oneil Cylinder space colony that cna be fully explored: https://vrclist.com/world/7780 (and Asagiris space/science worlds in general)
Far Future Propulsion˸ Museum of Nuclear Starflight (1:1 models of space propulsion concepts all the way to Project Daedalus) https://vrclist.com/world/1270747
Really, amazing things are being built in VRChat and most people even in the VR community itself are completely ignorant to that. At best they go "LOL SOCIAL VR APP" without actually checking what is possible with modern VRChat.
VRchat is what Zuckerberg wanted out of Meta. It is impressive but still suffers from the barrier to entry problem.
I think VR is in the same position the PC/Mac was in the mid 80's. It is finally technically capable enough to do some neat and useful things, it just struggles because of hardware costs. But I also said this about a decade back and progress has been neat but limited.
Barrier to entry can't be that extreme given it's full of kids.
There needs to be a premium club around vr gaming, like there is for other activities like car/driving enthusiasm.