I know exactly what you mean. I have stopped classifying many of the new ones as games. Instead I refer to most of them as Interactive experiences which is more suited to them for what they do.
Far Cry 2 is by a fair distance the best most recent game I've played in some time - it's the only one I keep coming back to. A lot of people found it repetitive (shooting up guardposts etc.), but I don't approach it like that. I like to get around the map stirring up as little heat as possible, and get more fun out of the tension of sneaking past. Before I start any mission, I pull out my map and plan my route - which bits by bus, which by river, which gaps between guardposts, etc. And for the missions themselves, I like to tactically dominate them - take out snipers from distance, find high ground (often ex-sniper posts), burn the place out if suitable, then mop up. If I get hit even once, or seen when I didn't mean to be, I consider it almost a failure. Crysis was remarkably poor by comparison - the suit completely ruins gameplay for people who like to sneak, because it removes the stress.
Far Cry 2 really was a glorious experiment in immersion—for some it seemed to fail spectacularly, and for others (like you and I) it seemed to hit some nerve in just the right way.
I play the game very similarly to you. Have you tried the self—imposed permadeath route? I did one play that way—didn't end up beating it, of course—and it was a hell of an experience.
I try to play most FPS games as if death is permanent, though I don't make such a rule. Rather, I simply don't enjoy the kamikaze rush that pays off maybe 80-95% of the time but looks like something out of a Hollywood action movie (this seems more the style where Crysis was targeted), but rather the reasoned, considered approach that works out 99.5% or higher (and might be a realistic approach if one were actually living in the game universe). Immersion just doesn't work for me if I can't do that.
So I don't like CoD and other linear shooters which present you with a series of scripted shooting galleries and a quota of targets to hit before allowing progress (it's utterly mindless); nor do I like (any more) the Quake / Doom style of horror "surprises", where long straight corridors and shadowy alcoves are near certain to contain unpleasant ambushes (it almost punishes foresight); and nor do I like Half-Life 2 and its episodes, which do not reward exploration or observation - every possible "bad outcome" is blatantly and repeatedly telegraphed, and almost every interesting alcove turns out to actually be the way forward because the obvious way forward turns out to be blocked: HL2+ are over-designed.
With more and more games focused towards consoles, lacking first person (I would have enjoyed GTA4 more if it were first person outside vehicles), and with "crouch in cover mode" features activated by dedicated controls (I thought ducking in and out of cover was part of the challenge?), I sometimes fear the depth I seek is getting harder to find. But I'm not sure. Games like the Thief series, Deus Ex, Far Cry 1 & 2, and modern RPGs like Oblivion and Fallout, are probably actually coming out with roughly the same regularity as always, just that memory compresses them.
