I want to know what I have to do, or at least have the ability to find out in the game. The nonsense puzzle can stay, but I need to be able to find a blueprint or alien document that explains how it works, otherwise it’s just gibberish.

However, if a game doesn’t throw you a curveball now and then, I think it’s far more disappointing to make a game that’s just a straight-shot beginning to end playthrough. I definitely do miss games that unapologetically said, “You need to learn to do this new thing in order to progress.” How fair it is to make that skill outside the normal scope of the gameplay is probably up for debate, but I definitely support the stop sign every now and again to vary the speed of play. Far worse than a game with filler is a game that can be measured in achievements per hour, where the standard deviation is very low.

As for some of the other examples you noted: Most of Bioshock’s “Help me, I’m dumb” assistance can be turned off or at least minimized; a feature I can only hope made as much of an impression on other developers as everything else awesome about that title did. No help for Call of Duty 4, though…But I can’t remember being too annoyed by anything in that game’s campaign mode, less its brevity. As for Mass Effect, I had to search online to be reminded about the puzzle in question. I do remember being annoyed by the puzzle, but I could also argue for it: This alien technology was as unknown to Shephard as it was to me; in not providing more information about the puzzle, the devs may have been trying to afford the player some of the same confusion the party is feeling, faced with this complex machine they must somehow manipulate without further instruction. I’m sure that the reasons behind the puzzle are more contrived than clever (which can sometimes be the same thing, anyway), but I would say that if that was the goal of the designers, they succeeded–perhaps too well.

By the by, I don’t think you’re being overly critical. If you are being paid to delineate why this or that is or isn’t good or worthwhile or what have you, you must be critical, perhaps even hypercritical (if being critical is something that can be objectively measured, anyway). What I think the challenge for someone like you (and by someone like you I mean myself) is, knowing when–or perhaps remembering when–to take off the “I am being critical” hat and put on the “I am playing this for fun” hat. I’d like to defend my constant return to the Dynasty Warriors and related series as accomplishing this very purpose: How much more can I appreciate (and perhaps less easily be critical of) great action games when I always have a consistently underwhelming base series to compare them to?

About the whole puzzles in Mass Effect, while that puzzle was a bit of pain I at least appreciate that they offered something different. It might not always work, but at least they were willing to take a chance and they didn’t pepper the game with ‘out of the way’ tasks.

I do agree that Assassin’s Creeds interruptions were annoying. For me it was the repetition that you had to go through as Altair. I found that even more of a problem than asking as Desmond and learning more about why he’s there from Vidic and Lucy.

If you hated the ‘hand holding’ of Bioshock, then I’d really love to hear your thoughts about Prince of Persia or Shadow of the Colossus which both essentially have the ‘hand hold’ button.