We tend to make a lot of beef about games being "cinematic" and it's pretty easy to spot the influence of film on more than a few games. Playing through Mass Effect 2, I realized that a large part of why I really enjoyed the story was that it didn't try to structure itself like a film. Instead, I think the more apt comparison was that it felt like a season of a good sci-fi tv show.  
 
The game opens by introducing you to the main conflict and felt very much like a season premier - giving you the bad guy, the main character, and then a mission to build a crew. Following that, we spend "episodes" picking up members of the crew and then getting to know them better with their loyalty missions. Interspersed in these missions were major plot episodes, like going to the abandoned Reaper ship, or exploring a colony under attack by the Collectors.  
 
Now that I'm an adult gamer, with a job and responsibilities, I'm rarely able to put in the 10 hour+ gaming sessions that were once commonplace. I loved that with Mass Effect 2, I could go and do an "episode", feel like I've gotten a good story arc out of it and then shut down for the night. I got my hour or so episode in and was able to feel like I had a satisfying experience.  
 
I sincerely hope that we see games with this sort of structure more often. I know that Alan Wake is going for a literal TV season feel. As gamers get older, I think we're going to want more encapsulated gaming experiences, without sacrificing epic stories. Giving us episodic missions is a great solution.