Next to Baldurs Gate 2, System Shock 2, Thief 2 (lots of 2s) and assorted adventure games, the No One Lives Forever games are some of the most pleasant things to rediscover. Seems every time i play them I'm surprised at how WIDE they are. They have a lot of different gameplay going on. NOLF in particular seems like Monolith just threw everything they could find at the wall to see what stuck. It goes absolutely effing bananas, with fighting through sinking ships, harpooning sharks, floating through space stations, sneaking through nightclubs.. Just a crazy amount of variety. NOLF2 caps a search through an abandoned building for evidence capped with a boss fight against a ninja in a trailer caught in a tornado.
 
This blend of adventure game, FPS and RPG is something you see so rarely these days, and the NOLF games were made in a time when a lot of companies were exploring that formula, with Deus Ex going the furthest. Games you could just replay and replay and keep digging deeper.
 
I feel like this kind of generous action game is an absolute rarity these days. I've been really surprised by the generosity of Dragon Age, but that's an RPG and it's almost par for the course. It seems like action games have become direct parallels to hollywood blockbusters, where more effort is spent on presentation and less on brevity. It's such a god damn shame! 
 
Anyone else got examples of really generous, giving games that they love, and maybe some recent counterpoints to my gut feeling? I'd love it if it wasn't just "me getting old" for once ;-)