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.
stay away from (most) AAA games, particularly Sony, and all "live service" games
Horizon and Days Gone is this. More recently First Descendant has utterly vapid destiny-style looter-shooter gameplay but looks really pretty and the chicks in it aren't ugly. I got in maybe 40 hours before I hit a grinding wall.
How brutal is that wall? I keep seeing that game pop up in my Steam recommendations.
I didn't understand the progression system and did a "reset" that unlocked higher toon progression but it meant I had to grind XP to continue the story progression.
It is fun enough for f2p and looks gorgeous. If you liked destiny it's similar enough. I hit 40 hours before I got bored.