The popularity even here of games that contain almost no adventure gameplay, should say something about the death of the adventure. Dreamfall contains very little gameplay, Fahrenheit* is over 90% Dance Dance Revolution rhythm game. They're loved for their stories, which says a lot about the audience, they're worse than The Matrix: Reloaded, The Da Vinci Code, and Harry Potter**, put together.
There are still a lot of adventures being made with adventure gameplay, I haven't tried many recently, reports of bugs, and stubborn use of conventions that just don't work like fixed camera 3D. The solution developers offer is to limit the ammount of interaction and gameplay, as if cutting a bad game down is going to make it better. There is nothing wrong with doing the same type of gameplay, but right now, it's done badly. Where we should be seeing progress, we're seeing regress.
Other genres, especially RPGs, continue to borrow from past adventures of the '90s, but I very much doubt any of them are going to take anything from modern adventure games. Games from other genres are better at telling stories in the game not in cutscenes, better with technology, dialogue systems, interfaces, game engines, facial expressions and sometimes they even have better puzzles in them (and they're not even illogical, or obscure).
Financially adventures are already dead, making another Still Life or Syberia isn't going to make a lot of money. I don't see developers capable of making games of the calibre of Grim Fandango, Shadow of the Templars, or even The Longest Journey, how many developers are making adventures that made those. Dreamfall, Psychonauts, decidely not adventures, and Revolution with really poor efforts.
* David Cage's excellent post mortem identifies and shows promise he'll not repeat most of the problems with the game.
**It's for children, sure, it's a very good series for children and young adults.
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