The voice thing is interesting. as long as they aren't too bad usually you end up not noticing them (early one I found the voices in AlternativA to be pretty mediocre, but stopped noticing it about 25% of the way in). If they are bad though, you'll remember forever (again in AlternativA there is a point involving kids, which the kids voice acting is the worst thing I've heard in my life).
As for my rules:
1) Logical puzzles that fit into the game. The best example (from what I've played) is using Still Life and Broken Sword. In Broken Sword I didn't mind the puzzles like the door, etc. as they fit into the game. If they were in a murder mystery game, I'd probably hate them because, well they wouldn't fit AT ALL. Why does Still Life come up? Why first, the least logical, least "fit in" puzzle I've ever played....the cookies. Who is the idiot who thought "Lets add a puzzle about making cookies, with names for ingredients like "Heart" and "love" and other bullshit"? The lock puzzle was also annoying, but could be excused as fitting in at least a little bit. Really in Still Life, there were quite a few puzzles that seemed added mainly to have a puzzle. If it didn't fit, oh well, its a puzzle!
2. Good dialog with dialog trees. This I can be okay without, but much prefer them to be there. So far I can't think of any adventure game on my "like" lists that didn't at least have a dialog tree. I love the long ones, and don't mind if a wrong answer can lead to being stuck/killed as long as you can go back and replay it (had that in some cases in AlternativA, and made you really have to think about it before making a choice). Granted I love the murder mystery games, investigations, etc. so dialog is pretty big for me most of the time.
3) Story Story Story. Story is quite important for me, a lackluster story can really drive me away from a game. Having a hard time wanting to even go back to playing Mata Hari because the story just wasn't drawing me in, sure it might get better latter on, but if early it isn't exciting in any way, why keep going? All of my "liked" games also tend to have a story that really drew me in early on to them. Indigo, Still Life, AlternativA (great story imo), Broken Sword, Culpa Innata, and so forth. There really isn't any diehard rule on how to write the story, just make it worth my time to go through the puzzles, the cut-scenes, etc. Obviously, certain genre I personally like, but willing to go away from it for a great story.
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