But just like films where you won’t find the auteurs or Criterion Collection at your local theater besides a few exceptions, you have to seek them out and being paying attention (most people who make critiques like this aren’t anywhere near involved in music/films/games/etc like they were when they were kids. But they expect the same ROI.
Every booming cultural market pumps out more crap than good stuff, and I assure you the 90a and early 2000s had plenty of awful games.
If you look for real time strategy then the choices we have right now are nowhere near the quality of what we had 15 years ago.
Most modern strategy games are overly complex, take forever to get into and are overwrought in ways that makes them just not enjoyable.
StarCraft 2 is probably the most recent major RTS release, and it's not particularly active despite being an excellent game. The issue with the RTS genre is it's been superceded by two other genres. The people who want to play RTS games are playing MOBAs like Lol or Dota, or have moved to city building games which have had an explosion in popularity.
That said, Dawn of War 3 was released last year, the Total War, and Anno series still exist, StarCraft is still receiving updates, albeit infrequently, and there's a handful of indie games that scratch that itch
It's a small hardcore group of people that still play it but I find that stands out as the most innovating RTS that I have ever played.
There's nothing quite like having to negotiate with your peons to chop wood in exchange for better weapons later in the game.
There's a new RTS-FPS hybrid which is being developed currently on Early Access. It's taking the genre in a way is more similar to Battlezone in a sense that you actually train AI units rather than it being 100% human players on the field. It's a 5v5 , and commander filled the battlefield with trained AI mobs while player are much similar to warcraft3 hero.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/505740/Eximius_Seize_the_F...
Discord : discord.gg/ammoboxstudios.com
Wrt BZ2 a remastered version is available on GoG / steam. A few of the original developers have kept the game patched and compatible with todays hardware / software.
Age of Empires is being revived with the classic, well-proven look and feel, with upgraded graphics and new campaigns. Settlers is being revived with the classic gameplay (I hope) and not the AoE style gameplay.
There are several other games expected to be released this year or next and look like excellent candidates for being top-of-the-line strategy and city-building games. I hope at least some of them live up to the promos and hype.
Planet Coaster if you want a decent Rollercoaster Tycoon successor.
But there's plenty of games that match what you describe. Sony has published a solid lineup for the last few years. The dark souls series is a very solid example of modern skill based progression.
DLC used to exist - we just used to call them expansions.
There's also free to play games that use microtransactions as funding - but they're all either cosmetic or slight quality-of-life boosts that don't have direct gameplay impact (see: warframe and path of exile)
And that's not even talking about indies. There's plenty of indie titles that are pretty much 90s games with modern quality of life upgrades.
Some quality games that meet or exceed the quality of the 90s era from the last few years (in no particular order):
- God of War
- Horizon Zero Dawn
- Dark souls series (including bloodborne)
- Zelda Breath of the Wild
- Hyper light drifter
- Enter the Gungeon
- Spiderman
- Rimworld
- The Witcher Series
There's a ton more.. and there's also a glut of games coming out in the next couple years that also look amazing.
The thing that exists today that didn't in the past, is companies exploiting psychology to produce endorphin rushes tied to microtransactions. Companies tying gambling mechanics to gameplay advantage (FIFA and Madden are egregious examples of this).