not sure if this is really pertinent or not, but recently I've been playing the game XIII which is fairly old, but I really enjoy it because it never feels like its missing any component. You have some haphazard gun blazing at some parts yet at others you sneak in and kill guards before they can set off the alarm, and even tho its not a graphics show, it has some uniqueness to it since it utilizes cell shading to make it appear to be a graphic novel. Idk, i just really enjoy it.

oh yeah, XIII was pretty neat. but it was a little bit too much of sneaking imho and the balancing wasn't perfect. some bosses were extremely hard to beat, while others could be actually taken out with a sneeze. but all in one a very neat game.

I like both the "go shoot stuff" kind of game and "story" games, but I agree, sometimes being just grabbed by the hand and pulled through the game is kind of boring. The new games that I like are Medal of Honor: Airborne, which is an amazing WW2 game. You can choose which objective to do first, and how you want to go around doing it. I should go play it again. :P I also like Assassin's Creed(Yeah, I know, it's not an FPS). You get the choice to roam around the city and mess with the guards, or you can go and continue the story.

Now, being pulled through the story isn't always so bad as long as it has good gameplay, like Killzone 2. That was a fun game, but there was basically no freedom...at all. You could choose tactics in a battle, but it was basically, what cover do I use and should I flank or just take them out one by one using cover.

I like old school games because almost every one of them has tons and tons of little secrets. Like Duke Nukem 3D. You can activate a toilet and a wall opens. You can blow open a wall to get a jetpack. These games had simple controls and basically one objective...kill stuff and get to the exit.

So I think it depends on what I want to be doing at that moment. Getting immersed into a story with good gameplay to support it, or just having fun and shooting stuff.

My theory is (and I may have stated it before ... its been awhile since I posted in this thread) that the early 3D games (Doom, Duke Nukem, etc) were really just extensions of the 2D platform shooters that proceeded them. They are not much more than Space Invaders and Duck Hunt turned 3D (in principle) with their own unique twists. These types of games were created for FUN! Keeping it simple was a way of life.

Personally, I'm oldschool all the way. It's nice to have small objectives to do just as long as I'm not, as it was already mentioned, "forced to". A good example is the current Valve release "Left For Dead". Not a single object to slow down the gameplay. For those that haven't played LFD it's simple; go from safehouse to safehouse shooting as many creatures as you can, and there are plenty. Main point: just survive. You do have a small objective along the way: search everywhere for medkits, pills, pipbombs and molotovs that aid in your survival. What's amazing, and the main thing I look for in game design, is the replayability. A few of my buddies and I will play online for literally hours the same campaigns; 4 campaigns each with four levels. Addictive as hell.
I beleive game designers today rely too much on story lines with they're annoying cinematics; they're ok the first time but I hate to have to sit through them over and over. If I want to watch a movie I'll pop in a DVD, lol. I've been designing levels (maps) for Sven co-op (a modification of Half-Life) for 5 years now and each map I made focused on gameplay.