I'm not saying story is a bad thing. It's not, but it seems like a lot of devs focus so heavily on coming up with an engaging story and good visuals that they forget to actually make the game fun to play.
I think about some of the games I've played over the years, and a lot of my favorites either had fairly limited or even downright absurd plots that basically boil down to an excuse to make the gameplay loop happen.
Just a random musing.
I mostly agree, but it's not complexity, it's tedium. The actual game mechanics are getting more and more simplified, but it's locked behind superfluous skill trees that artificially extend the game by forcing you to grind for what's mostly just incremental stat buffs.
Ah, took me a moment, but I see what you mean. And yeah you're right. They throw in mechanics that are dressed up to look like they achieve depth and complexity, even though functionally, it's anything but.