I've been very sick of the state of muh 'modern' gaming seen these days

Yeah, same. And it seems to be getting worse. I like your (and other's) theory that modern AAA devs are so compromised at this point they would be downright incapable of designing a game that isn't just copy/paste. The industry is running on fumes, as all the competent people have long since been replaced. Sadly the average consumer doesn't care so, for now, it's still trucking along mostly fine. But you can only keep this going so long, when the devs aren't capable of, well, developing.