I think the new attitude towards "badder, ghettoer, darker" is turning me off a little. It started with prince of persia, and now pretty much every game is going darker, even innocent platformers like Ratchet and Clank, Jak, or Sonic the hedgehog. In some instance it makes sense, but in most cases, it is just imposed to sell.
All the games I find awesome sell like crap. Prince of Persia: SOT, Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts, Dreamfall (who wants to bet it won't sell well? ).
Another issue is the lack of imagination, and relying on sequels and "established" franchises. For god's sake, please less shooters. I know I am somehow to blame because I buy some of them, but in some cases, there really isn't that much choice, because the vast majority are of that type. I don't mind having the good ones but why do we need like 200 WW2 ones, and another 200 crap ones, to get one Half Life 2?
There are a few games that still get me excited. Psychonauts got me excited a lot when it was released, so was Jade Empire although it was a small step back from KOTOR (it still was an awesome game), God of War was awesome, Indigo Prophecy was the first adventure I have enjoyed since Escape from Monkey Island. This year there is mainly Dreamfall and Okami. But overall, my level of excitement each year is going down. It could be I am also getting older and grumpier
