Same here. Now in my mid-30's been gaming since I was 7. Your taste does change as you get older (often more Indie/RPG less "twitch" gaming), but I also think it's just as much the repetitive "feel" of the new games as it is a mid-life crisis. There's literally only so many times you can rehash the
"You're a [marine / former cop / disgruntled person]. You're on a [desert island / dystopian city / abandoned space / military facility]. You need to kill [terrorists / enemy soldiers / nazis / zombies / aliens / bad guys]" copy & paste plots.
CoD is basically the same game released over and over again, and looking at the shocking 1.8/10 user game rating on Metacritic for Ghosts, it looks like that franchise is running out of steam. Even hyped to the hills BF4 is getting only 6.3/10 PC user rating (both games scores averaged over 1,500 reviews / votes), so the "feel" is quite widespread, and not just limited to us thirty/forty-somethings.
Game mechanics have become repetitive too. System Shock 2 & Deus Ex (original) perfected the hybrid FPS/RPG genre. Now every FPS game wants to become a hybrid FPS/RPG. The "fresh smart FPS" feel of Deus Ex has now turned into "levelling up for the sake of levelling up" and become repetitive to the point of tediousness.
Over the past 12 months, I can honestly say I've had more fun playing older games than newer ones. In fact, I've just completed a marathon run of every level in Doom 1, Doom 2, Plutonia, TNT, Heretic & Hexen WAD's
(through the JDoom / Doomsday engine). Followed by Diablo 2, Thief 1-3, System Shock 2, Neverwinter Nights, original CoD & MoH, Morrowind, Oblivion, Dragon Age, Torchlight 1&2, Portal 1&2 - the whole lot running at 1920x1080 (thank you community patchers!). That cured my
"God, why don't they make games like they used to?" dry spell. Best fun I've had in years and the only new AAA games I've bought were Bioshock Infinite & Dishonored. Quite a bit of cash saved for other hobbies. :thumbsup:
As many others have said on other forums, with a few exceptions, a lot of modern AAA games have just lost that "fun-ness" and "PC feel" by trying to turn everything into a "made-for-TV, scripted cinematic experience". Poor Consolization porting has spoiled others (poor 'designed for 10ft view distance' HUD scaling at 2ft, laggy mouse/keyboard input, limited controls, etc). In recent years a lot of "A" titles have been much more enjoyable (Portal, etc), not to mention Indie games. I just can't put down "Don't Starve".
You'll find your footing eventually ixelion. Sometimes playing a few old favorites again can give you a fresh perspective that the problem isn't necessarily with you, but rather looking at the gaping split on Metacritic between high "professional" reviewers (verging on "shill" reviews / viral marketing) and low community reviews, is a general "AAA brain drain malaise" at the moment.