I see a lot of people criticize lack of depth, or what can be more accurately called simplicity (or, even more generously, concision), but I don't want something like DMC in God of War. I like that the amount and complexity of combos is incredibly manageable, because to me the fun of action games comes more from positioning, reading enemy types, and deciding which strategy to go with, rather than from attempting to beat the systems of the game. So that of course is it's own form of depth, and can be seen in the many ways encounters can be played out, especially on higher difficulties.
It's the same thing with games like The Last of Us or Uncharted, I know they're not as "deep" as games like Splinter Cell or perhaps Gears of War, but I value the fluidity in which all its systems cohere (stealth/traversal/shooting/melee) and that they are refined to their simplest elements. It's also why I think RE4 is unmatched as an action game—it's mechanics are incredibly simple, but that's to its benefit as an action game. So when you throw the immediately pleasing tactility of the combat systems with an easily digestible narrative experience (thank god I don't have to scroll through menus full of long paragraphs of tiny text to get narrative, or listen to dozens of audio logs), and thrown in a fleshed out setting, you get a type of experience that I often find preferable to games that are—to my personal tastes—too needlessly, even arbitrarily, obtuse, complex, or (at worst) clunky. Gameplay and game system economy is just as valuable as narrative economy in my opinion. I think there are plenty of specific critiques that can be lobbed at God of War, TLOU, and Uncharted, but I will go to the mat any day to defend their basic principles and gameplay systems.
