The US gaming industry has serious Hollywood envy. There's a constant push to make games "cinematic" and put big name actors in leading roles. This not only bloats budgets but results in barely-interactive monstrosities where gameplay is just a bridge between long, non-interactive cutscenes.
It's ironic because Hollywood is not doing too well at the moment.
I like "cinematic" games, and have never had a problem with long cutscenes as long as they told a good story. Games are a great medium for storytelling and cutscenes are better than delivering plot strictly by having players hunt for thousands of short snippets of text.
I'm far less impressed with big name actors and that seems like a massive waste of money. As long as the acting is good, and the voices aren't obnoxious, I don't care who the actor is. People might see a movie just because it has an actor they like in it, but I don't think that carries over too well to games.
It's definitely a balancing act. There are some great cinematic games (Last of Us), but it's also easy to put all the focus on the cinematic aspects and have a bunch of mediocre gameplay as filler in between. I don't understand why more games didn't go the Half Life 2 route and have the conversation/cinematic play out around you without taking control away completely.
That really is a good way to handle it, although it does open the door to miss certain things if players don't do what's expected. For example, in the opening chapter for the last of us you can miss the news report on the TV and the stuff going on outside through the windows before Joel comes in. More than once in games I've only been clued into the fact that I missed a jump scare by a sudden musical sting.
In one sense, that's perfectly fair. In life if you're looking at your feet or spending your time examining the walls you'd be oblivious to what's going on around you, and for non-critical things having a bunch of little moments that you can only catch if you're in (or looking at) the right place at the right time can improve replay value, but games would have to be careful to make sure that the important stuff can't be missed.
Last of US I replayed about 5 years ago on the PS4, and it isn't a good game. I recently revisited Uncharted (Last of Us is just Uncharted with a more serious tone), and they are not good games. I think casual audiences like them because of the heavy story element, but they are quite tiresome to play. Naughty Dog excels at presentation, but the gameplay is just not there.
There are also a bunch of "action/adventure" mechanics that seem to be identical in a bunch of mainstream games. You have an upgrade system, so the actual gameplay of the game is bad at the start because you don't have any of the fun abilities at the start, open world mechanics, a very bland open world and the stories are very PG-13, and the characters are kind of bland in the main story. I was playing Ghosts of Tshushima, and many of the mechanics come straight from Farcry 3. I think I am not going to bother completing it. I feel like I've played this game many times before because it's so similar to other games. I would have probably got bored with it before now if it wasn't for the setting.
Generally, a lot of people are still replaying some of the greats from the late 2000s to the mid-2010s because the games weren't nearly as bland.
> Last of US I replayed about 5 years ago on the PS4, and it isn't a good game. I recently revisited Uncharted (Last of Us is just Uncharted with a more serious tone), and they are not good games.
Most gamers would disagree with you. That's alright, art is subjective and different people are allowed to like different things. Maybe you just don't like games with a lot of story? If so there are plenty of genres that aren't story heavy like arcade games, tile-matching/match 3 games, fighting, FPS, sports, etc. Or maybe action/adventure might just not be the genre for you?
As for original mechanics there's very little out there, but that was true even in the 2000s to the mid-2010s (which would include both uncharted, and the last of us). Most games are just building off of what's been done before. You can find clever twists on old mechanics or rare combinations of them, but it's very hard to find something really different. When you do, it's hit or miss on them being worthwhile, but sometimes the novelty helps make up for the shortcomings.
> You have an upgrade system, so the actual gameplay of the game is bad at the start because you don't have any of the fun abilities at the start
Upgrade systems are supposed to provide progression. It rewards you for your progress in the game with fun abilities. It also helps keep gameplay fresh over the 25/40/60/120+ hours you play by giving you a steady stream of exciting new abilities/weapons to try out. There's often a new game+ option that lets you play the game again with all the best abilities from the start. Upgrade systems are generally a good thing! Sometimes things can go wrong though, for example one of the many problems with Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was starting your character out far too weak compared to how he was at end of the first game and the upgrades you eventually got weren't great either.
Speaking as a somewhat older gamer, if you really want variety in gameplay I'd recommend trying to branch out to new genres, indie titles, and lower budget PC games. The AAA games with huge budgets can tell a great story with amazing visuals and satisfying gameplay but they aren't going to take a lot of risks because of the amount of money on the line. That might also be why they can come off as PG-13, they want a wide audience.