Uh. Mutation card system? Crafting system while not unique but extracting legendary mods is differend to many games where you just farm drops untill you get the perfect roll. Power armor is also something i havent really seen done that well outside of bethesda. Also they enviromental story telling in map big as FO76 is top notch. I understand if you have trendy hate for Bethesda. I dont especially like they releasing skyrim every few years or how they made the planets in Starfield, but i get the feeling you are not sharing your own opinions. Just yelling stuff you have hears in the internet.

About portal. Valve saw an idea, bought it out and gave it a new shine. They did a good job recocnizing talent but it was as much innovation from Valve as Adobe shows when they buy new shiny software.

I had fun with back 4 blood. It was shame they stopped the support for the game so early. Also most people i see bitching about it played it at the release time when it was very unbalanced or tried to jump on the higher dificulties too early without ever learning how to really play the game.

Also about the map mutations in general. Its not a problem to be solved. Reason why some maps are so popular for example in CS or CoD is because people have learned the maps and enjoy playing the game in a way where they can antipiciate the opponents movements and know how to play the game on "high level". Some people enjoy more random maps more for the opposite reason. Its not a problem, its a preference. You are right that it makes it harder for the noobs to jump in to the games, but that is something many companies are trying to fix with match making.

I used alien as a example because it has similiar director behind the scenes as left for dead has. You know. The another big reason why the levels feel fresh. Id argue even that the director does more for the game feeling different than the small mutations in the level layout.

About valve vr.. you were talking about innovation. They did not create the vr. They arguable made a great game and pushed it to the limit what can be done right now, but in its self there is nothing inherently innovative in the mechanics, except they are very well executed.

I found it pretty obnoxius that you raise yourself above the "normies". Especialy when im feeling like most of your opinions come from other people and from gaming echochambers instead of you thinking things yourself. Personaly i have started gaming before windows was a thing and it has been one thing i can always get passionate about.

Another thing i find obnoxius is how people always think "big game companies bosses are incompetent" i bet most of the people in those position know much more about the markets than you and i. Their sole job is to try and generate money. Maybe its easier to think they are some cartoon level evil morons, but they are hitting their marks more times than not and we really only hear about the royal fuck ups.

And your quip about the star field. Bought it pretty late after the release on pc and on purpose tried to avoid any reviews before i finished the game. And im glad i didint. The game was not awsome, but it was not as bad as internets opinion was. Reading review can screw your perspective and make you focus on the minor inconviniences that you would ignore or not think about if somebody would not have brought those on the top if your mind.

Try sometime to test completely unknown game to you from either a demo or use the steam return policy and after you have your own opinion see if you agree with the reviews.