A lot of what you say is true, Nikki. And some of it is down to being jaded about the same old same old.
But, there is some truth in the difference between games made now and those made years ago, it's not all just down to perception.
Ten years ago there were multitudes of companies turning out games, fifteen years ago there were even more, and the reason for this was partly because the games didn't cost so much to develop (obviously with the lower technical specifications of the hardware), nor did they cost so much to buy, so you could go out and buy several games for the equivalent cash it costs to buy just one now... but more than that I think a large part was that there were no huge companies dominating the marketplace. It was far more open in terms of what people played. There was far more creativity and originality employed to overcome the physical limitation of the hardware. To a degree, the story and feel of a game had to be better to make up for the relative limitations of the hardware it was created for.
Now, though, with games retailing at upwards of £50/$100 in the UK, and costing millions and millions to make, developers have to be careful about what they put out there. It's not just a case anymore of putting out fifty games and being able to recoup the losses on forty-five if just five were big sellers... now the developers put all their eggs in one basket, and because of this they have to try and make the game appeal to as many people as possible, in order to claw back all the money they sunk into developing it. This usually means that a game will be a "jack of all trades, master of none" type affair, with something in there for everyone... but nothing as strong as if the whole game had been made a certain way.
If the game is too specialised (too niche) then it doesn't sell, no matter how good it is. It tends to be completely obscured by the commercial tie-ins to movies (which are some of the most shoddily put together games you can possibly imagine and the only reason they sell is because of the rare one minute footage of the film it's tied to, or because parents buy it for kids who are nuts about the film), or by the year on year updates that come out to well established brands (EA is a real pain for this) with only miniscule changes to the previous incarnaton, but because it says '09 on the box instead of '08, it supposedly has to be better.
Also, factor in that more and more of these small, innovative software houses are being bought up by the huge companies, and even more are being put out of business by the spiralling costs required to just get a game out there (it can be a case of if your game doesn't do well, you go under). Also, the retailers hardly ever get more than a few copies of any game that isn't 'mainstream' so finding a truly original title is next to impossible, and the orchestra of hype that is generated by the enormous software publishers for their generic products tends to drown out the lone voice shouting about how good a niche title is...
All of this is starting to lead to a more general push towards 'casual' gamers. People who want to pick a game up and be impressed with the photorealism, the amount of stuff you can blow up, and nothing that's so taxing that they'll be unable to finish it. People don't want a challenge anymore, they want a distraction, and I think the games companies are determined to pander to the people who don't have the hours to devote to a game (maybe because they use the warped logic that less hours available = earning more money to buy the games in the first place). And as a result of this, produce more and more generic rubbish that takes no skill and no effort, but looks pretty and will keep you distracted and entertained for a few hours.
Just look at the Wii and all the non-games that are coming out for it.
