Well, it's time for my weekly "You should try old school runescape" suggestion!
Most of the player base is approaching middle aged, and it's as close to a democratically driven game as there ever was. Jagex is very responsive to the community, almost too much.
That said, I know what you mean. Long gone are the days of internet wonder bringing people together over a quest or a death match.
I have very fond memories of playing on a clan owned server the first few years after TF2 came out. Slowly, I got to know people, and even overcame some pretty severe shyness to talk on a mic during games. My Steam friends list grew and we learned where each other lived around North America, what each other did, who was in a relationship with who. Some people even went so far as to offer couches if someone was visiting their town.
When I last booted up TF2, I was sad to just get put in a random server and couldn't find the old crews stomping ground.
Being older now, I sometimes wish I could find a game where communities like that could form. In hindsight it felt like one of the last breaths of the old internet...