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My preferences are broadly opposed to yours, but I understand what you mean when you describe a satisfying 15 hr game. There is something very satisfying about a story that you can sit down and casually chomp through over the course of a handful of post-shift evenings. As someone with multiple 100hr+ games in his steam library though, I can't agree on the point with open worlds with only 15~hrs worth of content in them, again with an understanding of what you mean; the only AC game I ever played for more than fifteen minutes was some 2d sidescrolling Prince of Persia-esque sidestory for the DS, played out of a child's desperate boredom and not desire.
The majority of what's on offer from major studios for probably the last ten+ years has been dreck, almost without fail. Titanfall 2 was a rare exception to the AAA studio putting out a mediocre product at full-game prices, and it very predictably flopped as a result. As someone who autisticly gets into the systems of a game, and plays them for that satisfaction, the high end of mainstream vidya has been largely uninteresting and I have ignored it entirely as a result.
Helldivers 2, for all the strangely political discussion that's surrounded it, has been by far my most played game since its launch simply because I can see how much effort was put into these systems I get to exploit (rounds are modeled, counted and persistent in the mag/belt/cylinder/chamber, semi-volumetric ballistics for enemy armor, spalling while not modeled is simulated in the damage characteristics of each weapon, etc.). It was a small AA studio that put out an ambitious nearly decade-long project at an AA pricepoint and people loved it and then got bored and moved on. I've put in 400+ hours and have fun playing it still. We all get what we deserve.
Did you put those 400 hours into Helldivers by playing with randoms?
In my mind playing things with people you know is a different thing than playing merely the designer's game. Of course there is an art to get to an engaging level with multiplayer games where you can shoot the shit and the balance if you want to get into competition. But other people are doing a lot of the lifting in my experience. I think the Steam/Twitch flavor of the month, which is often multiplayer shows that groups of online players tend to migrate together and Even after cracking 100 hours they aren't necessarily positive about the game itself. I have a coworker that gets let's say 700 hours playtime while being part of this herd and when I ask him what game he really enjoyed in the last year he often shrugs. Most likely Rocket League, which he plays when the other roamers aren't online.
My playtime for HD2 specifically is probably a 30/70 split between playing with my friend group and running randoms respectively, though I get your point about multiplayer games where the fun is dicking around with buddies. Lethal Company is a pretty good example of a cheap FOTM game that went wide and died off, not mechanically deep, complex or satisfying to play but it's great for a few weekend sessions with the gang.
I know people can get cranky when someone brings up "core gameplay loops" but if a game isn't at least enjoyable to interact with (in terms of controlling the character/player avatar in the gameworld) I'll drop it immediately. As the great Reggie Fils-Aimé once said, "If the game's not fun, why bother?". I would probably play HD2 from time to time even if the servers were shut down (don't think that's actually possible, thanks GAAS, so it goes) just because running around and shooting the guns feels good to me.
I also have a few coworkers who don't seem to understand, admitting they've played with a toy they don't like for hundreds of hours (or even better, bought into the ingame store) is telling on yourself. I genuinely think less of people who do that, they've shit up my hobby.
I'm firmly in the camp of core gameplay loops being very important. But I, like many others am not very consistent with what I like when I try to categorize stuff. I know that I don't care about story in (most) games but I like vignettes.
For example I think for whatever reason it's just fun to move and fight in Spider-Man but the open world POI stuff does nothing for me in general and many missions are just go somewhere and fight people. Whereas I also really liked The Witcher 3 which I don't think has a good core loop and fighting system. (Also not a good main story) but just being in that world and going to different small towns and solving their monster problem was great.
That's singleplayer. In multiplayer it is only gameplay. I could play Quake 3, Counter Strike and Rocket League for 10 years and still like it. But due to life reasons I don't want to play multiplayer anymore, except at Old school LAN parties with the people in the same room. Which I do once a year.
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