A lot of games today use scripted sequences or quick time events. The good thing about this is that they normally use it to show you cool set pieces that are extremely memorable for the campaign. Sometimes designers may spend hours or even days on putting something into a game an then the player may not even notice it if the scripted sequence or the QTE was not in place. Now although these set pieces are very cool and impressive, there is still a huge amount of fun and satisfaction gained from discovering things on your own.   
 

   
My best example of this would be games such as the Crysis or the Assassins Creed series. Now both these have very similar approaches to gameplay, both present you combat situations that allow you approach in a number of different ways. I have found the the good thing about this is the replay value this will bring to the game as package. But one of my issues is my own fault, now this may just be me but I have a slight OCD when it comes to playing my games. For example when playing Assassins Creed Brotherhood if the mission required me to sneak into an area without being seen and assassinate my target I would try to carry out the mission exactly like that, if I was spotted or I messed something up I would actually let the guards kill me so I could start the whole thing over again an do it not only the way the designers intended but also the way that seems coolest. No being cheap an shooting my target from a distance and then running away leaving my assassin friends to deal with the rest, I wanted to follow the target, wait for him to get in the perfect position and then jump on him from the top of a building as my hidden blade plunged into his chest. Now the reason I have an issue with this as I stated before is my own fault, my own weird video game OCD will not let me carry out a mission sloppily, and although I repeat some missions many times because of this, there is a great satisfaction I get when I do eventually complete the mission the cool way that I wanted to. However If these open and free situations in video games were scripted and had some kind of QTE, the plan would always go along smoothly and you will probably feel like a badass the first time you complete it, but what about the second?  
 

 
I have no problem with quick time events and scripted sequences in games really but I do feel that for how far gaming has come as an both a form of entertainment an industry, what it has really boiled down to in a lot of games today is having really nice looking stuff semi played for you. Almost to the point where the main focus of designers today is to create an interactive movie that leaves you with memories of sections of a game that you can talk about to a friend who had the exact same experience. There are developers who seem to do this very well, Uncharted 2 for example is a very linear and cool set piece type game, yet I have played through that single player campaign a bunch of times. But as the new Tomb Raider has QTE's and Mass Effect 3 has turret sequences I am left wondering if developers are designing more of an story for you to play through, or a game for you to experience how you want to on your own. As part of a community that I hear cry on a regular basis such things as “you’re dumbing it down!” I do understand that as a growing industry, variety is essential if gaming is to be taken seriously as a form of entertainment. So is this just simply a question of why developers cant figure out a way to direct players and not funnel them in order to show them something cool in their game, or is that too much of an ask?.