I'm with you overall in that games have declined a lot. At the very least I lost interest in multiplayer for the most part and so many new games have become so samey. I've just adapted by still playing old stuff. I'm the weird one that was a PC gamer in the past and became a console gamer later. The early push for big money 3D accelerators in particular came at a time that they were totally unreachable for me and when I was very busy, so I ended up just almost skipping a few years gaming.

I play all kinds of old stuff pretty regularly though, so that makes up for it. Since I was a DOS guy, I've been revisiting some of the old point-and-click adventures, or even playing some I never touched. Lately, that's been The Dig. Totally new to me and fun. I've also screwed around with making a retro gaming blog type thing to encourage me to try new old stuff. In the end, it will probably not even be an echo chamber but a soundproof room where I talk to myself, but hey it's still fun. I always enjoyed the creation side of games.

So, my suggestion would be to try some old stuff. If you don't have a system, emulation works really well now and that's how I've played those. If you want a community, then we have one here. I'm down for a Gameboy and Pokemon club. I don't know much about either but I started Link's Awakening last year for a bit. The mod(s) have even suggested the community here getting into some actual gaming.