Ahh.. Another one of those threads..
OP, I know how you feel. I am almost 32 and I have the same problem. I think it's a combination of a ton of added responsibilities at this age + the overall mediocrity of games in general.
First of all I am doing my Masters right now. This is not even a prestigious college or anything like that - I can imagine many colleges with a much higher workload, and I am taking only one class! But, it's still too hard for me. I am learning programming, and I never programmed in my life. So this stuff is absolute murder. Plus I have a full time job as a computer tech. I work the evening shift and come back at 11pm. I only have to go to work at 1:30pm, but it doesn't matter because I am dead during those morning hours anyway because I can never make myself go to sleep before 1am. Plus, now I have my own place, and there's bills, and there's the girlfriend with her BS.
I didn't have to worry about any of this shit when I was 16. I'd just come home from school and play Diablo II. All day, every day. Plus, there was Planescape Torment, Command and Conquer, Warhammer: Dark Omen, Rome TW, Ground Cotrol 2, Half-Life and lots of other awesomeness. Even when I was 20 somethings going for my Associates, there was still much more free time than there is now and many more great games.
Now, there's still many good titles...
Dragonage Origins - awesome, but something about it is just not as epic as Planescape Torment or Icewind Dale
Bioshock 1,2, and the last one... forgot whats that called. Haven't played that one yet, but I'm sure its good.
Borderlands 1 and 2, Shogun 2 Total War, and many more...
But there also just too much "drek"... Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, Battlefield, Black Ops, all garbage... All the same. Enough already. All flash, no substance.
Also when will WoW die already? Just.. die... I wish everyone would just stop playng it.
Command and Conquer got destroyed by EA. Diablo 3 blows. Starcraft II is horrible. The single player campaign feels like it was made for 13 year old kids.
But really I think one of my biggest gripes is time investment. I am just no longer willing to invest. Games that have a learning curve piss me off. Every time I sit down to learn a new game, I cant help but think that I could have used that same time to do my homework, or pay the bills, or **** the g/f. Maybe it's the age pushing me. Telling me.. Hey! Dude! Wake the hell up! Life is not endless, you will DIE at some point, and now that time draws closer than it was when you were 16, and when you do die, do you want your life to have been spent playing games or do you want to be remembered for some great achievement, or at least having had a beautiful wife, or built a house, or became a CEO of some company.. or at least some sort of a manager... or maybe just raised a son who grew up to be a really good man. Right now, I haven't done any of those things, and unless I do something now, I never will.
Either way, I am not saying people shouldnt play games. I still occasionally play them. But I try to invest into them much less. I play EVE Online, and I only log in to modify my market orders. I don't PvP, and I don't partake in any group activities because all that requires "investing". I try to use my time more efficiently. I am rarely successful in this task, but I try.