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.
even before the woke mind virus things were trending that way, though. I don't hate story in a game, I just feel like sometimes the story takes a back seat to actually fun gameplay, which turns what should be an enjoyable experience into a slog...